The Perfect Christmas
by Princess Tyler Briefs
Summary: In which Ben tries to make up for all the Christmases Riley didn’t get as child. Semisequel to Magic of the Season. BenRiley brotherly fluff with a side of BenAbby. Chapter 18 of 25: Christmas Music.
1. Decorations

**A/N:** This is sort of a sequel to Magic of the Season, in that it uses what Riley says in it as a set-up. You do not necessarily have to have read it, you can still manage fine, but it might make a little more sense if you do.

I'm doing this as a 25 days of Christmas thing, to off-set the darkness of the other sort-of-but-not-really Christmas fic I'm plotting out right now. You should all be getting one short story a day from today until Christmas. That's the plan anyway. We'll see what reality brings.

**Disclaimer:** I own nobody. How sad for me.

**Summary:** In which Ben tries to make up for all the Christmases Riley didn't get as child. (Semi-sequel to Magic of the Season. BenRiley brotherly fluff with a side of BenAbby.)

_**The Perfect Christmas**_

_Chapter 1/25: Decorations_

"Ben?" Abby's tone made it quite clear that she wasn't really questioning if the person perched precariously at the top of the ladder leaning against the side of the house was her husband. Rather, she was asking whether or not he was currently sane enough to recognize his own name.

"Yes, Abigail?" Ben grinned down at her from over his shoulder, very careful not to shift his weight too much. He was pretty sure that being able to hang by Christmas lights was a myth, and he didn't really relish the idea of plummeting three stories to join his wife on the ground, thank you very much. He'd wait until it was possible to climb down.

"What are you doing?" Again with the sanity questioning tone. Honestly, one would think she didn't trust him!

Not that she had any particular reason to trust his sanity. He was the one up on the ladder at dawn, after all.

"What does it look like, dear? I'm putting up Christmas lights."

"I can see that." This time, she just sounded exasperated, which caused Ben to grin a little bit. "But I thought we'd agreed that we weren't going to be making a big deal out of Christmas until we had children. That we were going to celebrate it quietly, with minimal decorations."

"Well," Ben grunted as tried once again to get the lights to stick to the side of their house, "you see, I've decided that decision may have been a bit premature on our part, as we failed to take in all factors."

"Really? Like what?"

Ben felt rather than saw Abby take a hold of the ladder, steadying it as he leaned out to try and maximize how far he could make these lights go without moving the ladder. He made a mental note to thank her for that when this was all done. "Riley."

"You're out here in below freezing weather and snow to hang Christmas lights for Riley?" Abby sounded somewhere between angry and amused. Ben knew he'd have to word what he said next very carefully, as it would be what decided which way her mood swung.

"You see, Abby, when you left us alone the other day, Riley and I had a talk. It seems that he didn't get much of a Christmas as a kid. He said they couldn't really afford it."

He glanced down to see if he'd said the right thing. From the soft look on Abby's face, it seemed he had.

She smiled up at him as he let the lights fall and began to back down towards the ground. "So, you want to give Riley a nice Christmas?"

"That's sort of the idea, yes."

"Benjamin Franklin Gates, you are possibly the biggest softie I know." Abby hugged him once his feet were both firmly back on the ground.

"Possibly, yes," he smiled, kissing the top of her head. "Is that an objection?"

"We'll see. What are your plans for this great Christmas of yours?" Abby stepped back, crossing her arms and looking him up and down with a bemused sort of smile.

Ben shrugged, reaching to scoot the ladder over. It had taken him nearly four hours of looking yesterday to find a ladder tall enough for him to put lights around their house, and even more time to get the boxes and boxes of lights required for what he had in mind.

He really hoped he could sell Abby on the idea of helping him, because he didn't fancy the idea of spending the rest of the day trying to get all those lights around all the windows, the door, the wall, and the trees and bushes closest to the house on his own. "Tell me, Abby, what's your favorite Christmas memory?"

She looked a little taken off guard, and frowned in thought for a moment. "My favorite Christmas memory?"

"Yeah. The thing in your childhood that just made Christmas magical for you. The thing that you loved best, besides presents."

"Caroling. In Germany, we celebrate St. Nicholas day on the sixth of December. Every year, my family and I would get together with our friends and go caroling. I remember I was allowed to open one present that night, before we went, and it was always a new scarf and some warm gloves." Abby smiled as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes looking very far away. "The kids would all get hot chocolate when we were done, and by then we were too tired to even think of trying to stay up and spy St. Nicholas."

Ben smiled a little, taking her hand. He'd forgotten for a moment that, growing up outside of the United States, Abby would have different traditions.

"A close second was Christmas Eve. We weren't allowed to see the tree until Christmas Eve night, and the first time you see it…" She sighed, looking at Ben with a wistful smile on her face. "That's magic."

"I want to give that kind of feeling to Riley. I want to give him the perfect Christmas; maybe the first really great Christmas he's ever had." Ben took Abby's red gloved hands in his own, lifting them up and kissing one of her finger tips while he looked at her pleadingly. "Please, help me?"

Abby laughed, leaning in for another warm embrace. "Sometimes I think you love that boy more than me."

"Not more than you. Just differently." Ben smiled, holding her tight against him. "He needs us, you know."

"Not that you're just unwilling to let him grow up, or anything." A soft kiss on his cheek as Abby pulled back to smile up at her husband. "Of course I'll help you. I don't think you could plan the perfect Christmas without me, anyway."

"Well, it wouldn't be the perfect Christmas without you," Ben grinned; now starting back up the ladder.

"Do you have anything planned at the moment?" Abby yelled up as she took her spot at the bottom of the ladder once again, holding it safely in place.

"At the moment? Caroling and not letting Riley see the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve night."

The blonde laughed, shaking her head to rid it of stray snow flakes. "What about your favorite Christmas memories?"

Ben paused, hanging the lights carefully before he glanced down at his wife. "My Dad and I used to go sledding. When I was five, I got a new sled for Christmas. We went every year after that, until I told him I was too old. I'm going to take Riley sledding."

"I would pay to see that." Abby laughed, leaning against the ladder. "If you can get Riley to go sliding down hill at high speeds, you will officially be a miracle worker."

"What, finding a history altering treasure doesn't count as a miracle?"

"No. You did that on your own brain power. Getting Riley to go sledding is going to take far more than that."

Ben smiled, but silently had to agree. "I have a plan for that."

"And I can not wait to it action." Abby chuckled, shaking the ladder slightly as she shifted her weight. "That surely isn't all you have planned though."

Ben glanced down at her as he reached the end of that strand of lights. "Do you really want me to ruin the surprise? And can you hand me those lights by your foot?"

Abby grabbed the last loop of lights already lying, untangled, on the ground and half way climbed up the ladder to hand them to her husband. "It's not a surprise for me. "It's not a surprise for me; it's a surprise for Riley."

"That doesn't mean you can't benefit," Ben grinned at her, taking the lights and plugging the ends together.

"Then I eagerly await the end results of your master plot, Mr. Gates." Abby chuckled to herself, backing back down into the snow. "In the mean time, I'm going to go get us some hot chocolate, because you must be frozen."

"I do believe that masterful plan is greater than my own, Mrs. Gates," Ben smiled at his wife, who shook her head in exasperation before disappearing into the house.

Even with the two of them working together, it took them until nearly sun down too get all the lights in place. Arguable, it would have been faster if Abby hadn't kept insisting the lights be just as she wanted them, or if she'd stuck to Ben's plan of just decorating the outside instead of insisting that if they were going to do this they were going to go all out (the trip to the store for additional indoor garland, lights, wreaths, and baubles had taken an additional three hours). And, perhaps, if Ben hadn't gotten tangled in the bushes by the front door twice, and not convinced Abby that having a real model train running on a track around the main floor would be fun, they might have saved some additional time, but the reality was still that it had taken a full day's work to finish.

They were frozen and exhausted, but when Riley showed up for dinner that night—as he did nearly every night— the way his eyes went a round as a pair of Christmas ornaments and his mouth literally fell open, completely speechless, at the way the different colored lights reflected off fresh snow and made everything glitter, at the elaborate decorations put up just for him even though he didn't know it, and his chocked yell of delight at the train somehow made it all worth it.


	2. Shopping

**A/N:** Wow. Yay for eager responses! I'm glad this is getting the reaction it is. I figured this fandom was Christmas fic starved. Seems I was right. I don't think this one is as good as the first, but hey, what can you do?

Inspired, in part, by the song "_**All I Really Want For Christmas**_" by Steven Curtis Chapman. Thank save changes to normal for introducing it to me.

_**The Perfect Christmas**_

_Chapter 2/25: Shopping_

Ben's first mistake had been assuming that because New York was famous for it's shopping it would actually be _**fun**_ to do his Christmas shopping there.

His second—and possibly fatal—mistake had been to think that taking Riley with him would be a good idea.

Nobody cared about the kid more than he did, of this Ben was sure, but if Riley said his feet hurt one more time then he was taking his next trip down an escalator head first.

"What are we even looking for," Riley complained from the other side of an isle of shoes. "We've been in a hundred stores and you've only bought your dad a new glasses case. Which, by the way, is the _lamest_ present ever."

"He needs it," Ben explained, reaching up and opening a box of shoes and frowning at the contents. He wasn't sure, but he thought Abby probably already owned a pair just like these.

A bunch of the boxes were shifted around, and Riley peered at him through the hole that was made. "Ben, you don't buy people presents that they need. You buy them fun stuff."

"You've obviously never spent Christmas with my father."

"Well, it's not my fault you never took me home to introduce me to the family," Riley smirked at him. Ben wished there wasn't a wall of shoes between them so he could whack his best friend upside the head.

"I can't take you anywhere, without getting strange looks, can I?" He pushed the boxes back, getting some small satisfaction of hitting Riley's nose with it.

"That's all you, Ben. Someone your age following around a handsome young guy like me…people start to wonder."

"Why do I bother," Ben muttered to himself, meeting up with Riley at the end of the isle. "We're trying to find Abby's Christmas present, remember?"

"So we're looking at shoes?" The younger man raised an eyebrow at him, not bothering to hide his scoff. "Ben, she owns more shoes than any woman possibly needs. Even you can't argue that would make a good Christmas present."

"You didn't approve of the jewelry stores either. Can I not win with you?"

"Hey, it's not me you have to win with," Riley shrugged, sticking his hands in the pocket of his black hoodie. "I'm just trying to make sure you don't have to sleep on the couch until Spring."

"Abby's not that petty," Ben argued back, picking up a leather purse.

"Yeah, tell that to me again when you're sleeping on _**my**_ couch," Riley grinned at him.

"Ha, ha, you're very cute," came the muttered response. "Alright then. If you're so smart, what would you get her?"

Riley shrugged, side-stepping a couple of kids that were dashing down the department store isle. "I just think of her as a female version of you, and find the appropriate item."

"That's really weird. You know that, right?"

"Weird, maybe, but accurate. Unfortunately for you, you already gave her the perfect present before you were even going out. No idea how you're going to top that stupid button."

"Pin."

"Whatever."

Ben frowned. He'd actually had that thought himself. What could he get Abby that would be better than the Inaugural button? It would have to be special, and have a story.

Things you bought in department stores didn't come with stories. "We need an antique store."

"Then why did you drag me all the way up to New York City to walk around for hours?" Riley's tone wasn't really quite a whine. He actually sounded pleased. "You so owe me for the blisters on my feet."

"Well, then, I'll get you a decent pair of shoes for Christmas, how's that?" Ben grinned, looking over in time to catch Riley's indignant look.

"First of all, my Converse are the best shoes ever. Secondly, didn't we just discuss that you don't get…" Riley was cut off as a kid bumped into him, nearly knocking him over.

"Excuse me," the kid muttered before taking off down the aisle.

"Yeah, but I still disagree with you," Ben said, looking up from where he'd bent to pick up the bag Riley had dropped, but when he went to hand it to his friend Riley wasn't there. He was halfway down the isle, chasing after the kid.

Confused, Ben dropped the bag holding his Father's present into Riley's large bag and started to chase after him. Normally, Ben could keep up with Riley easy, but in such a large crowd Riley's smaller size gave him a distinct advantage. When they turned and reached a slightly less crowded part of the store, Ben put on a burst of speed to catch up with his friend. "What are you doing?"

"That kid pinched my wallet," was the terse reply before Riley yelled down the isle. "Hey! Kid! Get back here!"

The boy put on a burst of speed, and soon he was nothing but a blue blur as he made a sharp down another isle towards the front door. Riley was right behind him, nearly sliding on the slick tile and leaving Ben to struggle along behind.

Once they were out on the crowded street, it was even more difficult to keep up. The best Ben could do as they turned corners and drifted further away from the clean and popular streets was to keep his eye on Riley and mutter 'excuse me' as he bounced off two people for ever three steps he took.

It seemed that Riley had no problem navigating the bustling streets. In fact, if Ben didn't know better he would have sworn that Riley had done something like this a thousand times before.

The expensive shops and nice apartments steadily gave way to more run down and shabby buildings; some of them probably hadn't seen any kind of touching up on them in the last half century.

As they turned down one final alley, the historian saw Riley standing in front of him, not running anymore.

Ben was panting when he finally caught up with Riley, who was staring up at the run down building in front of them. He ignored the boys playing around in the street and on the front steps as he put his arm around Riley's shoulder, "Riley, what is going on?"

He felt Riley swallow hard and watched him blink rapidly several times. When he spoke, his voice was tight and strained. "There are a lot of memories here…"

Still frowning, Ben looked up at the sign hanging above the main door. Miss Louis's Home For Boys.

He could take a guess here about the significance of this place to his friend. He was fairly certain that this is where he'd grown up after his mother had lost custody of him. That information, though, wasn't supposed to be known to him, since Riley had never told him, and Ben wasn't about to reveal that he hadn't trusted Riley for even a few moments when the kid had always trusted him completely. "Riley…"

"I spent so many Christmases…so many letters to Santa even though I never believed in him…" Riley laughed, but it was wet and possibly closer to a bitter sob than a laugh.

Sighing, Ben tried to pull his friend away. "Come on Riley…"

"You know what I asked for…every single Christmas?"

"…No."

"I wanted my Mother back." Riley shook his head, finally looking at Ben with tear-glazed blue eyes. None of them had fallen, and Ben doubted any would. "I begged, pleaded, that she would come and get me and we'd be a family again. Not that we were much of a family to begin with, but there were days and…and I loved her…I don't know why she…"

Riley bit down his tounge, as if realizing he was saying far more than he wanted to. Even knowing the bit he did about Riley's past, Ben couldn't get more than the feeling of abandonment and loneliness out of his friend's rant. It didn't matter. It was enough.

"Hey, we going to go get your wallet or not?" Ben motioned to the boy sitting on the front porch, talking non-chillingly with one of the older boys already there.

Riley shook his head, looking back at the building with an unreadable look on his face. "Nah, he can keep it. I'll cancel the cards…and that cash probably means the world to him right now."

With a half-smile, Ben tugged on his friend's arm. "Come on, Riley. Let's go home."

At this, Riley smiled and the unshed tears vanished.


	3. Parties

**A/N:** And now we're back to fully fun mischievous fluff! Enjoy!

Oh, and for anyone that's curious, I've drawn some NT fan art. You can find it at the following address (just replace the stuff so that it looks like a url address): ode2sokka (dot) deviantart (dot) com

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 3/25: Parties_

"But Abby," Riley drew out the last syllable of her name as long and obnoxiously as he could, inflecting it up and down a couple of times, "it's itchy!"

Abigail Gates sighed as she turned around carefully on the icy sidewalk—not the easiest feat in these tiny high heels—to adjust Riley's tuxedo jacket for what was swiftly approaching the fiftieth time.

Honestly, it was like he was trying to annoy her out of making him go to the party! And her husband, the jerk, wasn't helping either as he kept laughing harder the more Riley whined. They were like a couple of teenage boys; they positively fed off each other. The more Ben laughed, the more Riley whined, and made Ben laugh more!

"Will you two behave," she sighed, hitting Riley smartly on the back of the hand as he tried to adjust the jacket so it was more comfortable. He pouted, but she ignored him. "This is the annual Christmas party for the employees of the National Archives. I thought you two would be a little more excited about it."

"Correction. You thought he would be more excited," Riley jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Ben. "You knew perfectly well I wouldn't want to go, but dragged me along anyway."

This was a truer statement than Abby was willing to admit to, so she ignored it. "The least you two could do is try and act civilized."

"I'm sorry, Abigail," Ben smiled at her, doing his best to look sheepish. "It's just that, after last time, I never thought I'd be allowed back in here."

"Personally, I'm just tired of these suit-and-tie-parties. Honestly, you can't even call this a party. It's a bunch of stuffy people standing around and doing nothing. So not a party." Riley was full out pouting now, glaring down at the loafers on his feet with great dislike.

Abby sighed once again, reaching out to try and smooth down Riley's mess of hair. "You might as well get used to it. Celebrities have to go through this all the time."

"I'm not the celebrity. That's your hubby."

"I gave you credit," Ben smiled at his friend, taking obvious amusement in his wife's attempts to make the brown locks stay flat.

"I'm a footnote, and you know it." Riley growled, pulling away as Abby went to lick her hand. "Keep your spit out of my hair!"

"Well, if you would have brushed it like you were told…" Abby turned away, but she made sure her posture made it quite clear that she knew that Riley had skimped on as many of her instructions as possible.

It was like the boy didn't even care about making a good impression on her co-workers. Although, admittedly, Abby knew this was partly her own fault. She really didn't have to bring Riley along for this. Ben, yes, but not Riley.

Because, technically, the invitation had said 'you and family members'. That really should have excluded Riley on two counts—one because he was arguably still a child most of the time, and two because he wasn't her family in the traditional sense. These thoughts hadn't occurred to her at the time though; the first thing she'd thought of had been how she was going to convince Riley that he couldn't wear a hoodie with a collared shirt.

Now she was almost regretting the over-sight on her part. It would have spared her four Tylenol if she could have avoided arguing with Riley for nearly four hours about what he could and could not wear to this party.

She'd had to let him bring his laptop in order to get the Converse off his feet, and she was still wondering at the wisdom of that decision.

She heard footsteps hurrying up from behind her and let Ben slide an arm around her waist. "We promise to behave ourselves. Don't we, Riley?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be a good little minion and entertain myself with minimal disturbances to the other guest."

Abby couldn't help the slight smile at Riley's very put out tone. "There's just no pleasing that boy, is there?"

"Absolutely not," Ben agreed, returning her grin with some relief. "The world could be made of sunshine and populated with small adorable fluffy creatures and Riley would complain it was too bright and that he was going to get fleas."

"I can still hear you, you know," Riley yelled up to them, but followed them obediently as they entered the hall that had been used for the Gala—during which Ben had stolen the Declaration, but Abby seriously hoped no one would bring that up. As interesting a subject as it was, there was no possible way to end that conversation without it being awkward. Abby knew this, because she'd tried several different ways and all had failed.

Unfortunately, luck didn't seem to be on their side.

No sooner had they entered the room than Doctor Herbert approached them, smiling. "Doctor Chase. Mr. Brown. How curious to see you here again."

She heard Riley nearly choke as he tried to keep from laughing out loud, and Ben released he long enough to turn and glare at his friend.

Abby put on her most pristine smile, the one she used when dealing with people she was less than fond of and crazies. "I'm sorry, Doctor Herbert, you must have him mixed up with someone else. This is my husband, Benjamin Gates. Ben, this is Doctor Herbert."

Ben gave her odd look, fully aware that he had met the man last time. Without breaking her smile, Abby calmly stepped on his foot to remind him that she didn't want awkward questions asked.

He winced as the heel of her stiletto pressed down on his toes, but forced a smile onto his face. "The pleasure is all mine, Doctor Herbert."

As expected, the other man frowned. "Are you certain we've never met before, Mr. Gates? I never forget a face, and you bare quite the resemblance to a Mr. Brown that Abigail introduced me to last time."

Riley coughed behind her, once again unsuccessful in controlling his fit of laughter. Abby decided to capitalize on this.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot. Doctor Herbert, this is Riley. Riley, Doctor Herbert."

She heard Ben cough something that sounded suspiciously like 'the stiff', but since she had no idea what he could mean by that she chose to ignore it—and the renewed bout of muffled laughter this caused on Riley's part.

"Doctor…"

"Yes, it's Gates now," Abby smiled a bit at this, and pretended not to notice the pleased look on Ben's face.

"Well, regardless of your name, you are still much too young to have a son that age."

Now it was Ben's turn to laugh, turning his face away to try and hide it. Abby stepped on his foot again, and he quickly regained control of himself.

"Riley isn't my son, he's…" She hadn't thought of this situation coming up. She was hoping people would just accept Riley at face value. She came up with the first lie she could think of. "He's Ben's younger brother."

Now that she thought about it, it was easy enough to believe. Both of them had unruly brown hair, light blue eyes, the same nose, and long faces. As long as neither of her boys ran their mouths, they could pull this off easy. It was certainly easier to believe than Riley as her son. She was only twelve years older than him for goodness sake!

She glanced at Ben, who looked too surprised that she would lie about this to say anything, and then over her shoulder at Riley, who was looking thoroughly pleased with this whole game to spoil it.

"Oh," Doctor Herbert was looking distinctly uncomfortable by this point. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I'm not making a very good impression."

"Nah, you're making a great impression…of your foot in your mouth," Riley laughed, moving over towards the table laden with interesting looking deserts.

Abby glared at Riley's retreating back, while Ben shook his head.

"Yes, well, it was a pleasure to see you again, Doctor…Gates." Doctor Herbert nodded to them before heading off to go talk to another couple that had just walked in.

Crossing her arms across her chest, Abby shot Ben her most intimidating look.

Ben responded by assuming an innocent expression he could only have picked up from Riley. "What?"

"That could have gone better, don't you think?"

"I'm not the one that lied…twice…in one conversation." Ben chuckled, offering her his arm.

Abby took it, allowing him to lead her towards one of the tables. "Both were necessary. I don't want to admit what you did while here, do you?"

"Not necessarily," he agreed, pulling out her chair for her. "But Riley as my brother?"

"What? It's believable. You two look a like, and might as well be." She smiled at her husband as he sat down next to her. "The invitation was for family only…"

"And while we see Riley as family," Ben finished for her with a smile, "not everyone will see it that way."

"Exactly."

"Well, don't look now, but you're 'brother-in-law' is demonstrating making out to a couple of eight-year-olds using two Gingerbread cookies."

Abby whirled around, and her eyes widened as a devilishly grinning Riley pressed the two gingerbread men together again. "Riley!"


	4. Rice Pudding

**A/N:** This one was by far the hardest so far. Though the plot is probably the simplest, I'd never done anything with Patrick before.

This one is shorter, and it was so blasted hard! So, you all had better enjoy it.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Cool Whip either.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 4/25: Rice Pudding_

Patrick turned off his new Cadillac as he pulled up behind the red Ferrari already parked there. He smiled as he turned off the headlights, shaking his head. He should have known that Riley would be here too. Ben's second shadow.

His son had invited him to spend the holidays at his new home. At first, Patrick had been going to pass on the offer. He thought that he ought to leave the new couple to spend their first holiday together. Then Abby had mentioned that they would need a babysitter for Riley, and he'd realized she wasn't entirely joking.

It hadn't been much of a decision after that. He figured he owed Ben at least that much. His son had found the treasure—and never once rubbed in Patrick's face that he had been wrong—and settled down just like his father had always wished. The least he could do was baby-sit the master of sarcasm so he could have some time with his wife.

He carefully exited his car and made his way up the icy side-walk and smiled at the lights that lit up the front yard in a bunch of different colors. Looked like Ben and Abby had been busy the last couple of days.

Patrick approached the door, taking note of the giant wreath that was hanging there—decorated with an assortment of frosted pine cones and tiny birds—before knocking smartly.

Abby's grinning face swiftly appeared, "hi! Right on time. Come in."

She stepped aside, allowing Patrick to step into the warmth of his house and taking his coat and a scarf from him, putting them in the hall closet.

The house smelt like pot-roast, and from the kitchen he could hear two voices discussing something in hurried whispers. From the bemused on Abby's face, these voices were nothing to be concerned about, so he entered the kitchen.

Ben and Riley were on the opposite side of the breakfast bar, Riley sitting up on the counter and both of them looking down into a large bowl.

"That's a bunch of cooked rice, Ben," the younger man said, using a voice that sounded just like the kind used by elementary school teachers when speaking to an exceptionally slow child.

"Yes, thank you, Riley. I hadn't noticed," Ben muttered, stirring the rice slowly.

"And you're trying to tell me that you are going to make pudding out of it."

"That's what I'm telling you."

"Making rice pudding, I see," Patrick smiled a little, entering the kitchen with Abigail right behind him. Ben glanced up at him and gave him a half-smile, while Riley gave him a surprised and innocent look as he hopped off the counter.

"Ben's been telling us all day how much he loves rice pudding as a holiday desert," Abby explained as she passed him, moving to open the oven and peer at the inside.

"Ha! I could barely get him to eat it as a kid, and now he's trying to convince you that he always knew he was going to like it." Patrick shook his head, trying to keep the amusement off of his face. "And of course you two are eating it up," he pointed at Riley accusingly. "He could tell you the universe revolved around the earth and you'd believe him."

"Well, ancient peoples did," Riley muttered, but he didn't look upset.

"Dad, leave Riley alone. Just because you don't understand why anyone would volunteer to join the insanity doesn't mean you have a right to torment him." Ben glanced up his father briefly, giving him a thirty second warning glare, before reaching for the Cool Whip on the counter. "Besides, it turned out I was right."

"He didn't know that at the time," Patrick advised, looking over his son's shoulder, ignoring Ben rolling his eyes, and watching him dump the Cool Whip on top of the rice.

"I was right anyway," came the call from across the kitchen where Riley was peering in the oven with Abby. "Is it supposed to look like that?"

"Yes," Abby sighed, trying to push him away with her elbow. "That's exactly what it should be looking like."

"Just checking," Riley shrugged as he turned back around, and looked completely confused. "Ben…what are you doing?"

"I'm making the rice pudding."

"I see no 'pudding'." Riley made a face down at the bowl. "I see rice and fluffy sugary milk stuff. There's no pudding in there. You tricked me."

"I've heard that argument before." Patrick chuckled, moving over to get comfortable at the table. "Some little nine-year-old boy who was too afraid to try something new."

"I wasn't afraid. I just didn't feel like it, that's all." Ben was pouting down at the rice, and Patrick decided his son had spent too much time with his best friend.

"I'm still failing to see the pudding here." Riley frowned down at the concoction.

"It's more pudding like if you make it other ways," Abby grinned over at them as she placed a open can of cherries on the table.

"You'll love it, Riley, I promise." Ben sounded less than convincing as he put the pudding in the fridge to wait for after dinner.

"I am not touching that stuff with a ten foot pole. Most unnatural thing I've ever heard of, mixing whip cream and rice together." Riley sat down next to Patrick with a scowl. "This all your fault somehow, I know it. You forced it onto Ben when he was a child, and now he feels he has to do the same to me, since he's getting to old to have children."

Ben looked so utterly shocked that his father had to laugh, and ruffled Riley's hair affectionately. "Now I know why he keeps you around, kid. To keep him on his toes."

Riley shrugged, picking up his plate to use as a shield if necessary. "I try."

"You're going to have to try and escape," Ben muttered, also sitting down as Abby brought the roast over. "I know where you sleep."

Patrick chuckled again as the young man assumed his best look of innocence. "You and me are going to have some fun this holiday, kid. I can tell."

His reward was a shy half smile just before Ben decided it would be a good idea to smear some of the cherries across Riley's cheek.


	5. Caroling

**A/N:** Hm…this one was hard in its own way…stupid songs. Hey, look, I'm one fifth done. Whoo.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 5/25: Caroling_

Abby sighed and glanced impatiently down at her watch before approaching the bottom the stairs and calling up, "Riley! Hurry up! We're all waiting for you!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Riley's muffled voice came from somewhere overhead, probably from his room although it was difficult to tell with the floor between them.

With a sigh, Abby walked back towards the front door where her husband was waiting, shifting the small box in his hands back and forth and humming 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer' under his breath. He seemed to think that this was cute, so she resisted the urge to make him stop.

Instead, she leaned into the sitting room to smile at her father-in-law. "You sure you'll be okay here, Dad?"

He waved his remote and leaned back in the comfortable ancient chair situated directly in front of the TV. "I've got enough holiday specials and candy canes to last me until you get back. I'm fine."

Satisfied, Abby turned around just in time to see Riley jumping down the stairs two at a time. He landed by Ben with a grin, tucking his hands in his coat pockets. She wondered vaguely if she'd ever seen the skin on Riley's arms, and decided to ponder that fact later.

"Well, now, what are we waiting for?" Riley shifted his weight forward and bounced on the balls of his feet.

"One last thing," Ben snickered, shoving the box in to Riley's hands. "You get to open a present."

Riley's eyes widened and he looked down at the shiny box in his hand. "For real?"

"Yes, for real," Abby laughed as Riley's surprised look turned into a grin. "That's part of the tradition."

He needed no more prompting, and the paper was shredded in record time. The box opened, and Riley gazed curiously inside before almost reverently pulling out the new scarf, hat, and pair of gloves.

"You like them?" Ben asked cheerfully, gathering up the paper to throw it away.

"Oh, I don't know," Riley tried to sound nonchalant about it, but his face showed he wasn't being totally truthful. "They're not exactly fun…"

"Why on earth would we let you open a fun present so early? Then, there'd be nothing left for Christmas."

Riley's eyes, if possible, widened even further as Ben disappeared into the kitchen. "You didn't have to get me presents."

"Did you honestly think we wouldn't?" Abby laughed, shaking her head. Actually, they hadn't gotten anything for Riley yet, but that was mostly because Ben kept vetoing her present ideas. He kept insisting that Riley would buy the things she suggested himself if he wanted them. Which was true, but it left them with very few options. She took the scarf from Riley's hands and draped it carefully around Riley's neck and playfully kissing his forehead. "Besides, we wouldn't want you to freeze."

Riley's expression was something between wanting to hug her and running away, leaning toward the later, until Ben reappeared at his shoulder and put Riley's new navy-blue beanie over the boy's head and down to his eyes.

"Come on, Riley. We're leaving much later than planned already."

"Didn't realize the evening was so carefully planned," came the muttered response as Riley forced the hat back up.

"It's Abby. Of course it is," Ben laughed, opening the door.

"You two would still be lost with out me," Abby smiled, tossing her hair over her shoulder and pulling her coat a little tighter as she stepped out into the cold air. "Or at least Ben would be sitting in a Federal Prison right now."

"I would have figured out a way to bust him out…eventually." Riley muttered as he shut the door behind them.

Abby chuckled, linking arms with Riley and dragging him forward to catch up with her husband, where she then grabbed Ben's arm and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"So," Riley muttered, giving a half-hearted attempt to escape Abby's grasp, "what exactly are we doing?"

"We're caroling."

"Great…what's that?"

Abby would have stopped to stare at Riley if she'd been able to, but Ben kept walking and dragged them both with him.

"Caroling is when you go around singing Christmas songs for the free enjoyment of others," Ben explained, looking at his friend over Abby's head.

"Free entertainment?" Riley rolled his eyes, "perfect."

Ben smiled, ignoring the younger man's less than enthusiastic response, and started to hum 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' as soon as they were out on the sidewalk, with Abby joining in at 'good tidings we bring'.

Riley remained silent, looking thoughtful as the couple started in on 'O Holy Night'. He didn't even make a crack about Ben's less than perfect singing voice—Abby thought it was nice enough, but he wouldn't be selling any records anytime soon.

As they were joined by a few more carolers who had been out, something not entirely uncommon, Riley had pulled out of her grasp even though he remained close, and made no sound. Finally, as the group started on it's second round of 'Jingle Bells', Abby decided it was time to see what's up.

She released Ben's arm, answering his questioning look with a quick smile and finger squeeze, and dropped to the back of the group where the younger man was shuffling a long.

"You don't seem to be having much fun, Riley." Abby observed, just loud enough for him to hear her over the over-enthusiastic eleven-year-olds that were busting out the chorus of 'Jingle Bells' as loud as they could.

"This is a common thing to do, isn't it?"

"A little less so here than were and when I grew up," she smiled to herself, fondly remembering when she and her friend had been the ones more screaming and singing their favorite songs. "Yes, though, it's a fairly common thing."

"So, almost everyone knows these songs?" Riley nodded, like some things had come together in his head.

"Pretty much everyone that celebrates Christmas…" Abby frowned, and suddenly found her heart melting as Riley looked away. "You don't know them, do you?"

"I've heard most of them before…once…at different times in my life. Never enough to learn them. Nobody every taught them to me."

This, Abby thought, was just about the most heart-breaking thing she had ever heard. Some of her earliest memories were of learning the songs in both German from her father and English from her American born mother. She had sung them all the time growing up, especially during times when she had been scared or lonely.

How alone must Riley have been to have no one teach him even 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer'? "Ben told me you didn't have much of a Christmas growing up because your family couldn't afford it. That's not entirely true, is it?"

"I…" Riley looked at her now, biting his bottom lip, before sighing. "When I was with my mom that was it. There just wasn't enough for me—for extra stuff. There we a couple of good years, but…they were busy people, and I guess they just never thought about stuff like that. And orphanages don't exactly teach you Christmas Carols."

Abby's eyes widened. An orphanage? Why hadn't Ben ever told her any of this? She was dying to know more—like what happened to his mother, how he'd ended up so alone before Ben. She knew, however that prying would not be welcome. When Riley was ready, he would share, just like he had tonight.

So, instead of asking the questions she desperately wanted the answers for, Abby slipped her hand into Riley's and smiled at him as she brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Well, then, it's about time somebody did teach you. Just repeat after me, okay?"

Riley nodded rapidly, as if thoroughly taken off guard by her offer.

Abby smiled as the next song started, and swiftly whispered the line so Riley could keep up, "silent night…"


	6. Holiday Specials

**A/N:** And now for some one-on-one fun!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _It's a Wonderful Life_. I've never even seen it, actually, and only know what it's about because I looked it up on Wiki the other day.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 6/25: Holiday Specials_

Ben found Riley hanging upside down off their couch, flipping through channels so fast there was no possible way he could be processing what he was seeing. Since Abby and his father were off doing something—probably shopping since that's what the note his wife had left for him on the nightstand said—it seemed Ben had been left with the responsibility of keeping Riley out of trouble all day.

What trouble, exactly, he expected Riley to get into, Ben wasn't sure, but since it was Riley they were talking about there was sure to be some kind of trouble.

He walked over and sat down next to his friend, watching the flickering images on the TV for a while. It very quickly started to give him a headache. "Riley, what are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"O-kay…" Ben looked down at the younger man, who didn't even glance away from the TV screen.

"And your dad asked me what my favorite Christmas show was while he was waiting for Abby this morning—they left to catch some sort of sale somewhere at five this morning, by the way."

"You were up at five?"

"I told you, I couldn't sleep. Anyway, I told your Dad I didn't have one, and he told me I'd better have one by the time he got back."

Ben blinked. That was…odd. Not that he didn't believe it, because it sounded just like his Dad to order someone to get into the Christmas spirit. It was still kind of different, though, and didn't really explain why Riley was channel surfing at warp speed. He knew better to than to think there was an explanation as to why the younger man was upside down. "So…you're trying to find something to watch?"

"I'm trying to find a Christmas special that will hold my interest long enough to sit through it." Riley answered, pausing long enough to make a face at the talking Christmas tree on the screen. "So far, no luck."

"Don't tell me you've never seen Christmas specials either." Ben shook his head, marveling at how sheltered his friend would have had to have been all his life. First, not knowing Christmas carols, as Abby had informed him last night, now this?

"It's not that I didn't have the opportunity…TV just didn't interest me much. At least the fight for the remote didn't. I was happier spending time on the computers at school, or reading comics from the library." Riley hit the power button and dropped the remote. "Somehow, I don't feel like I missed much."

"You're just catching all the wrong ones," Ben smiled, moving toward the cabinet their TV was sitting on. Abby, Ben had discovered, was a closet movie fanatic and had a surprising amount of videos. A good chunk of those were traditional children's Christmas movies. Apparently, Abby's mother had had copies when they lived in Germany. When they came to the United States, she had searched for her own copies, and kept them with the rest of her movie collection.

Riley rolled over so he was no lying on his stomach, using his hands to keep himself from sliding off and face-planting into the coffee table. "What are you talking about? And how did you get all of those videos to fit in there?"

"Abby has amazing powers of organization."

"Yep. That explains it."

Ben smiled as he grabbed one movie from the shelf. "Well, I'm not going to introduce you to the wonderful world of holiday films by showing you my favorite."

Riley was sitting up now, doing his best to look attentive. "What's it about, the history of Santa Claus?"

"As interesting as that would be," Ben grinned, not really sure how sarcastic he was being, as he put the DVD into the player. "No, this is a show called _It's a Wonderful Life_."

"Sounds sappy."

"It can be." Ben took his seat next to Riley, snatching the remote to turn on the movie. "But I like the message of it."

"Oh great, a message," Riley's face didn't look nearly as disinterested as his tone would imply. "What's it about?"

"You'll just have to wait and see," was the smug reply as Ben clicked away from the menu and into the movie.

Riley frowned, utterly perplexed as the title screen came up. "Is this black and white?"

"Yes. Now hush, it's starting."

"I can't believe you're making me watch a black and white movie. I know they were the greatest technology when you were a kid, Ben, but…"

"Riley…shush."

Ben saw Riley sticking his tounge out at him out of the corner of his eye, but chose to ignore him as the movie began.

One hundred and thirty minutes later, as the closing credits began to roll; Ben looked over at Riley again. The younger man was leaning with his head on the arm of the couch, frowning at the TV like Ben had seen him sometimes do with particularly complex puzzles.

Ben smiled and nudged Riley with his elbow. "What are you thinking about, kid?"

"Have you ever wondered…what it would be like?" Riley looked at him, blue eyes clouded and unreadable.

"What what would be like?"

"What the world would be like if you'd never been born."

Ben frowned. He had no idea where Riley was going with this. The best he could do was play along and see where it lead. "I can't say I have, Riley. I always thought the world was a pretty good place with me in it."

Riley didn't return Ben's easy smile, instead looking away thoughtfully.

Leaning forward, Ben tried to catch his best friend's eyes. "Hey…Riley…you know you can talk to me, right?"

A small nod and another sideways glance. "You…you won't tell Abby, right? She'll make a lot more of this than it really is, and I wouldn't want her to worry."

"I won't tell her unless I feel she absolutely has to know." Ben nodded, unwilling to concede more than that. He wouldn't lie to Abby, especially if Riley's safety was involved.

It seemed acceptable to Riley too, because he took a deep breath. "You probably already figured out I grew up in that home was saw in New York. You're smart enough to piece that together, I know."

Unable to think of anything to say, Ben nodded. "I guessed it was something like that."

"And you probably were wondering how I ended up there, right?"

No, because he thought he knew, but he couldn't tell Riley that. "I wasn't going to ask."

Silence from Riley for a long time before his friend slowly slid up the sleeve of his sweater. On his lower arm were very old looking scars; little swells of pink skin in evenly spaced lines.

Ben swallowed, taking Riley's arm in his hands and pulling it closer to get a better look. "These are burns…from…"

"A stove-top. My mother never hurt me but…in the end that didn't matter." Riley swallowed hard, taking his arm back, and blinking back more of those gravity defying tears. "She could have had me back, once she got out of rehab. The judge said after a year she could come get me again…we could be a family again. She never came. And sometimes, I have to wonder, why she had me when she didn't want me."

Ben felt his throat tighten at Riley's words, at the look on his face that made it look like someone had taken away everything that mattered to him. Ben reached out, putting his arm around Riley's shoulder and squeezing it hard. "I can't speak for your mother, Riley, but I can tell you that _**I**_ am glad she made the choice to have you. And I don't want you to forget it, alright?"

Riley nodded, still blinking back his tears. He wouldn't cry, and somehow Ben thought that wasn't such a good thing.

One more shoulder squeeze, and Ben stood up, moving over to the TV. "I've got just the thing to cheer you up. Let me introduce to you _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_. Also known as, the life story of my father."

His reward for the lame joke was a half-smile as he sat down beside Riley again.

When Ben's father and Abby returned several hours later, they'd been through about half of what Ben considered the best Christmas movies. At some point during _Frosty the Snowman_, Riley had fallen asleep, and Ben had pulled the younger man up to rest his head on Ben's lap.

Ben's motion for them to be quiet was observed, and he certainly wasn't going to tell Riley about Abby having a camera. He'd figure it out when she got the pictures developed.


	7. Sledding

**A/N:** Yes! The worst of my finals are OVER! Just a couple of silly little tiny papers to do now. Which means, hopefully, I'll be getting these out before ten o' clock every night (don't hold your breath, though). I've been excited to do this one since the beginning; I hope you all enjoy it.

For those who asked: yes, this is all one Christmas season. Not one day, but one season.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 7/25: Sledding_

Riley looked from the old-fashioned red wooden sled up to Ben, then back down at the sled, and then over to Patrick, who shrugged, before finally resting mutinous eyes on Ben. "No. Way."

Ben smiled his most charming smile, the one that always got him out of trouble with Abby, and stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "What's the matter, Riley? Don't you trust me?"

"Considering our past history of you getting me nearly blown up, shot at, almost falling to my doom…"

The historian waved his arm, cutting Riley off. "Look, there are a whole bunch of kids already doing it."

"They are small and squishy, so therefore less breakable."

"He has a point," Ben's dad grinned at his son. "I was always much worse off than you after we crashed."

"You crashed?" Riley squeaked, blue eyes widening marginally.

Ben sighed and rolled his eyes. "No one ever go seriously hurt."

"Seriously hurt?" Riley stepped aside as some kids ran up the hill were he'd been standing moments before. "So you _**did**_ get hurt?"

"Riley…"

"You're not going to get him to go," Patrick smiled to himself, pulling his jacket tighter around himself as a brisk wind picked up and blew the loose powder around.

"Well, I'm not suicidal," was the muttered response as Riley leaned out and peered down the hill. "There's ice at the bottom you know. And trees. Really big tall ones, in case you missed them."

"Do you see any of those kids hitting those trees, Riley?" Ben sighed, shaking his head. Honestly, for someone who claimed to be an adventurer, the kid had no back bone at all!

"We have a large mass then they do, Ben, so we'll have more forward momentum once we get going…"

"Are you making that up?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"You might as well give up, Ben," Ben found his dad's eyes were sparkling as the older man said this, though the rest of his face gave nothing away. "He's too much of a coward to even try."

Ben had never seen Riley turn around to face anyone as fast as he did Ben's father right then, his blue eyes burning. "I am NOT a coward."

"I must be mistaking you with some other young man who won't even slide down a small hill then," Patrick nodded, this time the sly smile slipping onto his face. "I am getting quite old, you know."

Riley opened his mouth to say something, but Ben stepped between them—inwardly amazed that his father had managed to get a reaction out of Riley at all. Ben's attempts were usually ignored. "Hey, guys, lets play nice, okay? Would it make you feel better if I went first, Riley?"

A thoughtful frown before Riley nodded, looking altogether too serious. "Alright. You prove to me you can successfully get down this thing without dying, and I'll take my turn."

"Alright then." Ben strode forward and seated himself on the sled. He was a bit too big for it, but he was pretty sure that didn't matter much if he didn't let his feet down into the snow. He leaned his weight forward to try and rock the sled over the edge. He soon discovered, however, that this was far less effective than when he was younger. "Hey guys, would you give me…"

Ben was cut off by two pairs of hands shoving him roughly forward from behind. He turned around briefly to see his dad and Riley both grinning at him, Riley down on his hands and knees in the snow.

He didn't have time to look back after that; he was too busy trying not too fall off the sled. He successfully got down the hill and put his feet in the ground to stop himself. Ben could hear Riley laughing himself sick as he plowed head first into a snow bank.

"You okay down there son?" Patrick yelled down the hill, the grin obvious in his voice.

"Just fine." Ben yelled back up before pulling himself out of the snow and dragging the sled back up. Riley was still sitting the snow, grinning up at him. Ben frowned and dropped the rope for the sled into the younger man's lap. "You never were afraid of going down, were you?"

"How sheltered do you think I am?" Riley snickered, standing up. "Just because I didn't go sledding often doesn't mean I never did. I'll have you know, I was the fastest sledder for several blocks."

Ben shook his head before looking at his father. "Were you in on this?"

"Only on the pushing part," his father grinned back, rubbing his hands together. "You've got to admit, that was pretty funny."

"Yes. I'm laughing hysterically." Even as he said it, Ben felt his mouth twitch. He couldn't help it when both his father and Riley looked to be honestly enjoying themselves. "Okay, Riley, if you're so good, I want to see it."

The younger man frowned, pushing his new beanie back up. "I don't know. I haven't tried this in a really long time. It could go horribly wrong."

"I'll say nice things at your funeral," Ben smiled, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Nice. Did you think of that all by yourself?" Riley dragged the sled over to the edge of the hill, lining it up carefully before backing up a few steps.

"You, know, Ben I'm not sure this is such a good idea." Patrick frowned, watching as Riley's face split into a grin.

His Dad's thought came a little too late. Riley took a running start at the sled, jumping and landing on his stomach on the sled. He took off down the hill, going much faster at the outset than Ben had done.

"I think you might be right." Ben wasn't sure whether to laugh or be seriously considered at the yell of delight Riley let out as he flew down the hill.

"He's still got part of that fortune you gave him, right? He'll need it to the bones he's going to break."

"He's not going to break any bones…" At least, Ben REALLY hoped not, because Abby would hold Ben personally responsible.

In the end, Ben decided, they need not have worried. Riley twisted the sled sideways, allowing it to slide to a stop in a manner similar to an ice skate. He sat up on his knees, grinning at the two Gates men at the top of the hill, and waved. "You should really try that, Ben! It's fun!"

"I think I'll pass," Ben laughed as Riley somersaulted off the sled and into the snow before getting up to his feet and dragging the sled back up.

"He's a crazy fool," Patrick muttered.

"Yeah, but so am I, so it works."

"You know you're always going to have your hands full with him, don't you?" His Dad was looking at him over the top of his glasses, doing his best to look completely serious. "I don't think you could get rid of him if you wanted to. He's worse than a kid."

"I don't mind," Ben grinned back, and found he didn't. Life without Riley certainly sounded worse than a life with him. "He's certainly always good for entertainment."

Riley reached them then, out of breath and grinning from ear to ear. His face was flushed from the cold and exercise, and his eyes were more aware then Ben had seen them in days. "Okay, so, Ben went, and I went. That means there's only one person who still has to have their first turn."

Ben quirked an eyebrow in confusion before following Riley's eyes to his Dad. Patrick raised his gloved hands as if to fend them off. "Oh, no. I'm much too old to get on that thing."

Riley left the sled in front of the elder Gates and walked around behind him. "Aw, come on, Mr. Gates. Ben can afford to replace your hip. You're only as old as rocks once."

"Why you..."

Ben laughed as his father turned to glare at Riley, but the younger man took the opportunity to push down on Patrick's shoulders so he sat down, heavily, on the sled.

"Don't worry, Mr. Gates, this won't hurt me a bit."

"What are you…?"

Ben started to laugh as Riley pushed his father forward, digging his feet into the snow and running forward, with Patrick yelling the whole time.


	8. Baking

**A/N:** I'm kind of excited about this chapter; I'm not going to lie. A very special thanks goes out to _**save changes to normal**_ for being the best sounding board ever. I owe you so much for the help, my friend.

Also, please let me know if the layout for Ben and Abby's house seems inconsistent to you. I have a blue print in my head, but I'm not sure it's coming across quite like I want it to.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 8/25: Baking_

It was much too early, Patrick decided, for there to be noise in the kitchen. He'd simply gotten out of bed for a drink of water, and hadn't expected anyone to already be down there. Someone, he suspected, that was an intruder since he could hear his son snoring lightly from the bedroom he shared with his wife.

The elder Gates slowly made his way down the stairs, peering down into the kitchen. He could see a figure, dressed all in black, rummaging through the silverware drawer.

Patrick retreated back up the stairs quietly; going into the guest room he was using and digging into his suitcase for his hand gun. Ben had told him it was a ridiculous thing to have, but Patrick knew he'd gotten the gun and permit for a reason. It looked like he was going to be right, this time.

He crept back down the stairs, his gun aimed between the shoulder blades of the intruder. "I want you hands where I can see them. Right now."

The intruder whirled around, blue eyes wide and hands in the air, holding a spoon in one of his hands that he had raised over his head. "Don't shoot! It's just me!"

Patrick lowered his gun with a sigh. He should have known. "Don't you ever sleep, kid? You struck me as the kind of guy who can't get out of bed in the mornings."

Riley smiled sheepishly, lowering his hands as well. "I'm a bit of an insomniac. When I do sleep, though, you're right."

Putting his gun on the counter, the elder man looked around the kitchen with a frown. There was a bunch of items spread out over the breakfast bar, including a box of sugar, a tipped over bag of flour, a bottle of vanilla without a lid, and a box of eggs—one of which was broken on the counter and dripping onto the floor. Patrick couldn't help raising an eyebrow at the mess. "Dare I ask what you are doing?"

The young man smiled at him, rubbing one hand along his nose, leaving a trail of flour across his face, to push up the glasses that were sliding down. "I'm baking."

"Looks to me like you're creating a disaster area," here he pointed to where the butter was slowly melting into the spilt flour.

Riley yelped, going to a nearby cupboard and grabbing a plate to put the butter on. "I'm going to clean it up when I'm done. I promise."

"If Abigail doesn't kill you first, and I certainly wouldn't blame her." Patrick frowned as he surveyed the group of ingredients sitting on the counter. "What are you trying to make, anyway?"

"Cookies," was the succinct answer as the young man put two mixing bowls on the counter before walking across the kitchen to where his laptop was set up, clicking it on with just a few key strokes.

Patrick looked around at the ingredients again. He saw no chocolate chips or peanut butter, and that meant there was only one likely conclusion. "You're trying to make sugar cookies, aren't you?"

A couple more key clicks before Riley raised his eyes to look at him. "Yeah, I am."

"Why?"

"I enjoy making cookies?"

"From the way you're looking at that computer screen like a life preserver, I'm going to say not." Patrick grabbed a paper towel and started to clean up the broken egg. "So, why don't you tell me the real reason?"

"Because you all thought I wasn't going to figure it out," the young man muttered miserably.

The old man turned his head to the side, trying to keep the half-smile off his face. He'd told Ben the kid was too smart to let him get away with this little scam for too long. "I beg your pardon?"

Riley gestured around them, probably meaning for Patrick to look at the elaborate decorations. "All of this is for me, like I'm a practice run for future children. They're trying too hard for it not to be."

With this, Patrick had to agree. It was as if the two of them had somehow gotten it into their heads that they had to make this Christmas the best one possible, and they seemed to have every day planned out with something holiday for them to do with Riley. Patrick was getting exhausted just watching them.

"I think it's because, a while back, I mentioned something about my childhood to Ben. And, being who he is, Ben's trying to do the impossible and give some of that childhood back to me." Riley was grinning as he looked up from his computer screen, but it softened a little. "I want to do the same."

In spite of himself, Patrick felt his throat close up. So, he wasn't just trying to make cookies. The kid was trying to make some very special cookies. Jamie's cookies. He cleared his throat, trying to get his voice to come out even. "Well, to get it right, you're going to need my help."

Riley looked up at him, blue eyes wide with surprise. "Don't you want to go back to bed?"

"And leave you alone to blow up the house? Not a chance." He motioned the younger man over, this time allowing himself a little smile. "Now, forget that technological doo-hicky and get over here. We're going to make these cookies the old fashioned way."

"It has my recipe…"

"Not the one you want," this time, Patrick spoke quietly. "I helped my wife make them enough times, I know it by heart."

There was an audible click as the younger man shut the lid on his computer and came over, looking intrigued. "I didn't want to bother you."

"It's no bother. I haven't had these cookies since…since Ben's mother passed. It will do me some good to try them again. Have you preheated your oven yet?"

Riley shook his head, sending his glasses sliding down his nose again.

"Well, that's the first thing you're going to want to do." Patrick motioned for Riley to go to the stove as he grabbed the small mixing bowl and baking powder. "Turn it up to 375 degrees."

"Alright," the soft click of the knob being turned before Riley almost appeared at the older man's elbow. "What else do we need?"

"Measure out 2 and three-fourths cups flour for me." The elderly Gates dumped the baking powder in the small mixing bowl before reaching for the baking soda. "And don't even think of just sticking the measuring cups in the flour bag to pull it out. There's no cutting corners if you want them to turn out right."

Riley frowned at the measuring cup in his hand, looking perplexed. "Then how do you get the flour out of the bag?"

"You get a spoon and you scoop it out, so it's all nice and loose in the cup." Patrick smiled to himself as he watched Riley walk back over to the silverware drawer. "Jamie used to use a fork, to sift out any large chunks, but I don't think you really need to go to that extreme."

The younger man came back, spoon in hand, and looked at Patrick curiously over the top of his glasses as he hopped up onto a stool and reached in to scoop out the flour. "Jamie?"

"Ben's mother." Patrick took the first cup of flour when Riley handed it to him, slowly stirring it into his baking soda/powder mixture. "That's where you got the idea for making the cookies, isn't it?"

A small nod. "Ben was telling me what he remembered of Christmases when he was younger. The cookies were almost the first thing he mentioned. I know they aren't going to be the same, but I thought I could at least do something."

"Returning the favor, right?"

"No. If I was returning the favor, I wouldn't let them leave," Riley grinned as he filled the second cup up with flour. "Have you noticed Abby's excuses have gotten lamer? Last night it was 'but you didn't sleep two days ago, you might fall asleep while driving'. Honestly, if they want me to stay all of December, they should just ask."

"Would you stay if they did?" Patrick returned Riley's over-the-glasses look, not a hint of a smile on his face.

"Well…no, probably not. I do have a house…apartment…and it seems silly to be paying rent and not staying there."

Patrick dumped the last three-fourths cup of flour into the bowl, stirring it thoroughly before setting it aside. "It's not a bad thing to accept help from other people, you know."

To this the younger man said nothing, instead just trying to roll the top of the flour bag closed again.

"You know, I was a treasurer hunter like Ben, once." Patrick leaned over grabbing the larger mixing bowl and putting in the stick of almost melting butter. "This worked fine when it was just me. Then I married Jamie, and soon discovered that I had nothing. We spent the first year of our marriage living in her parents' basement. It was hard, but I think she and I were closer because of it…you need to get one and a half cups of sugar ready."

Riley was watching him curiously, automatically reaching for the sugar as instructed. "What was your wife like? Ben just told me she was a lot like Abby…"

Patrick chuckled to himself, accepting the sugar from the other man. "Oh, yes, there are some definite similarities between Abigail and my Jamie. She was detail oriented too, and put up a tough front when really she was as soft as a marshmallow inside."

"Just try telling Abby she's soft inside," Riley snickered. "What do we do next?"

"Well, since it's too early to use an electric mixer without waking them up, you're going to have to find yourself a whisk, kid." He smiled as Riley hopped off the stool he'd grabbed to sit on and walked over to find one just as he'd been told. "I remember the first time I met Jamie…she called me a nut and almost forcibly threw me out of her classroom."

Riley paused in his digging long enough to half turn and look at the older man. "Classroom? She was a teacher?"

"High School U.S. History," he replied, laughing. "She could have taught college, but she said she liked the kids better. One of the authorities on influential females in United States History."

Blue eyes watched Patrick curiously as Riley climbed back up on his stool, whisk in hand. "You went to ask her about Charlotte, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. I figured that she had to be somebody important, that all the Free Masons would recognize. Since it said 'lies with', I thought that maybe she'd died around that time, and the clue had been buried with her." Patrick pushed the bowl over so Riley could begin creaming the butter and sugar together. "Of course, she wanted to know why I wanted to know about someone that—to her knowledge—didn't exist. I got no further than the first line of the treasure story before I was swiftly told to leave."

Riley snickered, though he didn't look up from the bowl. In fact, judging from his expression, mixing the two ingredients together was taking a great deal of concentration. "At least Ben got through to the pipe…"

"She heard the whole story, eventually. I wasn't about to give up when I was sure she could help me." Patrick smiled wistfully, remembering the intrigued look that had been in his wife's dark eyes when he'd finally convinced her to hear him out. "For the few years I had her, the two of us searched tirelessly for the treasure. We were just looking in all the wrong places."

A few minutes passed before Riley pushed the bowl back. "If you don't mind me asking…what happened to her?"

Patrick picked up the bowl, adding in the vanilla and the egg before pushing it back. He did, in fact, mind this strange boy asking such a personal question. He wasn't part of this family, and had no right to stick his nose where it didn't belong!

Except he was part of this family; Ben and Abby's obvious love for him was proof enough, and he was just going to have to get used to it. Riley had as much right as anyone else in the house to know. "She had a fatal disease. Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, a disease that causes the air sacs in the lungs to become scar tissue. Eventually, you're killed from lack of oxygen. Ben was eight when she passed." 

A heavy silence settled between them, interrupted only by the scrapping of Riley's whisk as he beat together the wet ingredients. It was painfully obvious the younger man didn't know what to say.

"You need to add the other ingredients next," Patrick instructed, forcing himself to ignore how thick and shaky his own voice sounded. "Just add a little at a time."

"You must miss her terribly," Riley answered, his eyes meeting the older man's as he reached for the smaller bowl.

"Everyday," Patrick swallowed hard. "But it was a relief when she was no longer suffering."

More silence, though this one a little less oppressive than before. Riley sighed as he slid the last of the small bowl of ingredients into the now thick dough. "I didn't mean to bring up painful memories for you."

"You didn't," the older Gates smiled, and found he meant it. "Jamie loved Christmas, and it's been far too long since Ben and I celebrated it her way. I think it would make her happy to be remembered this way." He moved over, peering over Riley's shoulder, and reaching in to take a small bite of the dough. He chewed it thoughtfully before ruffling Riley's hair. "You did good, kid."

Riley grinned at him, looking pleased with himself. "What do we do now?"

"Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours, and I'll show you how to make Jamie's famous butter-cream frosting."


	9. Sleigh Ride

**A/N:** I recommend having some version of this song playing while reading this. Because it's amusing. And, before anyone says anything, yes this is a filler chapter.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 9/25: Sleigh Ride_

Abby smiled at the young man sitting down on the bench in front of her, and held out the Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate with a grin. "You did this yourself, you know."

"I couldn't possibly have pushed all those buttons on my own," Riley grinned back at her, accepting the cocoa as she sat down next to him. "You were going down the other side, trying to beat me to the end. I saw you."

This was true, but it had been so funny to watch Ben twitch the first time Riley did it…she'd wanted join in the fun. "I didn't realize he'd actually send us both outside."

"You know, Ben. He likes quiet when he's trying to think." The younger man took a sip of his drink, blue eyes watching her the whole time. "As I'm sure you remember."

"I didn't realize he took present shopping so seriously. We should have listened to Dad and just stayed home."

"And miss the opportunity to make Ben loose his cool in public? Not a chance." Riley looked so pleased with himself that Abby couldn't decide whether he was joking or not.

"Well, now we've got at least an hour to entertain ourselves," she paused to take a long sip of the hot chocolate. It was a bit watery, but what did she expect for a dollar. "And we have to do it without leaving the park, because we told Ben we'd be here whenever he was done."

"Actually, he told us we'd better be here. It amounts to the same thing, though, I guess." He frowned down at the cocoa as he swirled the cup around. "I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly keen on just sitting her for the next hour. For one thing, it's cold."

"And for another, those kids look like they're ready to start the snowball fight of the century and we're in the line of fire?" Abby smiled, waving at the small faces that were peering around the tree.

"Exactly." Riley got to his feet and offered a hand to help Abby up, which she took. "What happened to the good old days when Ben wouldn't let us out of his sight for more than a couple of minutes?"

"I think you annoyed that desire out of him about two days after Ian went to jail." She laughed, pulling a tissue out of her pocket and using it to wipe some chocolate off the younger man's face.

Riley twisted away, trying to bat at the tissue to keep it out of his face. "Yeah, well, he was being a bit ridiculous. We were never in as much danger as Ben anyway."

"Ian wanted to shoot you."

"You'd be surprised how many people do. Remember how you came downstairs yesterday morning and there was the gun on the counter?"

Abby laughed, shaking her head. "Dad explained that. If you don't want to be suspected of robbery, don't dress like one."

"Sixty percent of my wardrobe is black. I can't help that." Riley was walking backwards now, grinning at her. "Besides, the look on Ben's face when he saw his dad and me decorating those cookies was so worth having a gun aimed at me first thing in the morning."

"That was really sweet of you," Abby laughed, tucking some loose hair back under her hat. "To make those cookies for Ben. He was so excited."

"Hey, look at all you guys have done for me the last week. After all the decorations and stuff you guys did, making cookies was a piece of cake." Riley grinned at her before chugging down the last of his hot chocolate.

"It hasn't all been just for you, you know," she leaned over and grabbed his cup, throwing them both into a near by trash can. "Ben and I have had just as much fun as you."

"Somehow, I doubt that."

Abby shook her head, looking around at the other people in the park. She smiled at a couple of little girls being pulled around on a sled by someone who looked like their father. This was why she loved Christmas. Everything was about family, the one night a year her father was guaranteed to be home.

She gasped as someone grabbed her wrist, tugging her forward and away from the nostalgic thoughts. "Riley! What are you doing?"

"I think I just came up with the perfect way to pass an hour. Come on!" Riley pulled on her hand, leading her up to an old fashioned sleigh, complete with a chestnut horse and sparkling silver bells.

"You've got to be kidding," Abby laughed, finally getting her hand free.

"Come on, Abigail. I've always wondered what this is like. It'll be fun!" Before Abby could brace herself, Riley stuck out his bottom lip and widened his eyes to the perfect level of pitiful. "Please Abby…"

She half-groaned, half-laughed, as Riley grinned and tugged her forward to where the driver was waiting by the horse. "Hey! How much for an hour's ride?"

The driver turned to look at them, looking surprised. He was a young thing, probably a couple of years younger than Riley. Abby was willing to bet this was a holiday job for him. "Uh…twenty dollars, just like the sign says."

"The sign didn't say how long," Riley grinned, digging into his coat for his new wallet. "We'll take a ride then."

"Okay, sure." The young man grinned, giving the horse a gentle pat before moving around to climb back up in the driver's seat and donning a ridiculous top hat that was too large for him. "If you and your girlfriend would just step this way."

"Oh, no, she's not my girlfriend. She's my sister." Riley grabbed her hand, dragging her excitedly up to sit on the red velvet seats. "I told you this is going to be fun!"

"What is it about hanging out with you and Ben that makes people assuming things about me?" Abby sighed, sitting down as the bells gave a jingle.

"It's not you Abby, it's us. We're just so irresistible." Riley ignored the roll of her eyes, bouncing in his seat and waving to the kids they passed. "This is awesome. It's like sledding, only better."

"And with a smelly horse," their driver yelled back at them over his shoulder.

"Ben's going to be so jealous he missed this just so he could keep a few presents secret." The young man grinned over his shoulder at her. "That's why he kicked us out, you know."

"Yeah, I know." Abby chuckled. "You were just giving him the excuse he wanted to get rid of us, huh?"

"Weren't you?"

Abby chuckled, grabbing the back of Riley's coat as he reached out to try and get a handful of snow from the tree. "He's determined to find you the perfect presents."

"Trust me, Abs; he'll do the same for you." He flopped back down in the seat, his hands full of snow.

"What are you doing?" Abby frowned down as Riley started forming the snow into a ball.

"Just watch."

She did just that, and laughed out loud when the younger man threw the ball, pegging Ben in the back of the head and yelled, "You're looking the wrong way! We'll be done in forty-five minutes, Ben. See you then!"


	10. Ice Skating

**A/N:** Can I just say that I'm living vicariously through Riley at the moment. Seriously. I wish I had a Christmas like this!

And this is all going somewhere. I promise.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 10/25: Ice Skating_

"Ben, I'm really not sure this is such a great idea."

Her husband looked up at her, giving her a reassuring half smile before looking down again to focus on tightening up his skate. "Come on, Abby. What's there to worry about? It's just ice skating. On a professionally maintained rink, even. Not even a pond you could fall through."

"The ice is still really solid you know," she scolded, tugging on her own skate laces.

"Isn't that sort of the idea?" Ben chuckled, glancing up at her again. "You can't exactly ice skate on water."

Abby frowned—mentally scolding herself for pouting. She needed to spend less time around Riley if she was seriously starting to think sticking out her bottom lip would solve anything. "When was the last time you went ice skating?"

"I was fifteen. I'm pretty sure I haven't forgotten, though. Why?"

"Nothing. I just haven't been since I was eight, and I know I've forgotten." She got to her feet, wobbling a little on the thin blades.

Ben smiled at her, walking over and taking her hand gently in his as he stood up, and began leading her toward the opening out onto the outdoor ice rink. "I promise, I'll catch you if you fall, okay?"

"Okay." Abby tightened her hold on Ben's arm as they stepped out onto the slick ice and her feet immediately tried to run away from her. As promised, Ben held her steady. She put her head on his shoulder as they started to move forward. "So, where'd Riley get to?"

Her husband pointed, laughing, to a figure on the other side of the rink, surrounded by several small children, that had just toppled over backwards. "I think he found his own teachers."

Abby bit down nervously on her lip as the kids crowded around Riley. She remembered too well how much falling on the ice could hurt. "Maybe we should go over and check on him."

"He's fine." Ben patted her hand reassuringly. "Riley's made of tougher stuff than you think."

"It's not that I think Riley can't handle it. He's just accident prone that's all…"

"And _**you**_ are just worrying too much," Ben grinned at her, dragging her along as they started skating around the edge of the ice.

"The last time I went ice skating, I broke my arm. I cannot even tell you how miserable it is to have a broken arm for Christmas. I wouldn't want that to happen to Riley."

"You broke your arm ice skating?" Ben looked like he couldn't decide whether or not to be sympathetic or laugh. "And you're calling Riley accident prone?"

"I think it makes me justified," Abby huffed, lifting her head up. "Besides, I was eight-years-old and it was the first time I'd gone without my parents."

She fell silent as they neared the children and Riley, who was still lying flat on his back, but obviously trying to grin she could see now.

"Hey, Mister Elf, are you okay?" One of the boys, a tiny little guy in green stocking cap, asked Riley as he gently poked the young man in the side.

"Mister Elf?" Ben asked, choking back a laugh.

"Yeah! He said he was one of Santa's elves!" Another boy—they were all boys, Abby realized, wearing matching coats with something printed too small for her to read on the front—informed them. Though it sounded more like 'thantath elths' since he was missing his two front teeth.

"He said if we helped him learn to skate, he'd make sure Santa gets us what we wants," the first boy spoke again, turning large hazel eyes up to Ben and Abby.

The couple exchanged confused looks before Ben released Abby to skate over to his downed companion. "Hey, Mister Elf, you want me to call a doctor for you?"

Blue eyes snapped open, as Abby had known they would. The only way to get Riley to behave faster than saying 'doctor' was to bribe him with something sweet, shiny, or both.

"A doctor won't be necessary," he reassured Ben, looking repentant. "I just had the wind knocked out of me, that's all."

"Yay," the toothless boy cheered as one of the bigger boys offered Riley a hand up. "Mister Elf is okay!"

Abby watched as Ben raised an eyebrow at Riley, a silent question, to which the younger man only shrugged. From what she knew of the two's silent communication, something they used surprisingly often, that shrug was a half promise to explain at some point in the future.

"Hey!" Every member of the little group turned their heads as a new girl, Abby would have guessed she was about Riley's age, came skating over. "What do you think you're doing?"

"He's not bothering us, Ms. Jessica," the blond boy that had help Riley up smiled at the obviously concerned girl.

"Yeah," green-hat boy tried to bounce his agreement, nearly falling over. "Mister Elf said that if we helpted him learns to skate, Santa will bring me the tricycle I want."

"Oh really?" Ms. Jessica raised an eyebrow at Riley, who was openly staring at her. "Well, Mister Elf, I don't know what you think you're doing harassing small boys but…"

"Jessica? Jessica Bates?" Riley's voice cracked as he said it, and now Ben had both eye brows raised in obvious confusion. Abby inched her way closer, eager to hear what was going on.

The younger girl turned her head, long auburn hair falling over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"I…It's…Riley Poole."

The blond boy reached out a hand to steady Jessica as she in deed did look ready to fall over. "Riley? Oh my gosh…It's been so long! How are you?"

"Oh, I can't complain," Riley shrugged, plastering a nervous half-smile on his face. Abby thought hearing that from _**Riley**_ of all people was somehow wrong.

"Ms. Jessica," the toothless boy asked—or tried to as the words were obviously difficult for him—as he tugged on the girl's coat. "Do you know Mr. Elf?"

"Oh, yes," Jessica smiled, never taking her eyes off of Riley. "I dated Mr. Elf in high school before he got too big for his britches and graduated a year and a half early to leave for the North Pole."

Now it was Abby's turn to steady Ben, who seemed to have forgotten to breathe. Apparently, the concept of Riley dating had never occurred to him. Not that Abby had put much thought into it herself, either, since she'd never seen the young man actively trying to pursue a girl since she'd known him. In her mind, he just seemed too young to be interested in a girl—which was utterly ridiculous; he was twenty-two-years-old.

"You _**dated**_ one of Santa's elves," a freckle faced little boy with a lazy eye gaped up at their teacher…or whoever she was to them.

"Apparently so," Jessica frowned thoughtfully. "The long distance relationship didn't work out, though. Apparently, he was too busy helping Santa to return my letters."

"Yeah…Jessica…about that…Can I talk to you over here for a bit?" Riley skated forward, grabbing the woman's wrist and pulling her away.

"Hey! He already knew how to skate," the small boy pouted. "He tricked us."

"Don't worry, kid, I sort of feel the same way." Ben muttered, looking so utterly bewildered it would have been endearing if Abby didn't find it so exasperating. "He never mentioned having a girlfriend before."

"Had a girlfriend," Abby corrected with a sigh. "And, honestly, how much of his past does Riley usually volunteer at all?"

"Not much," her husband had to concede as the boys all skated off. "I just don't know why he didn't tell me…"

"Honestly, Ben, what have you told him about your exes?" She rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to knock him upside the head, because no matter how satisfying that would be she doubted it would help much. "It's not like you're his father and should know every single detail of his life."

"I just never thought of Riley having a girlfriend, that's all. I mean, he joked about us but…"

Abby laughed, sliding her arm into Ben's again. "Personally, I'm glad he's had at least one. I'd find it much more worrisome if he was twenty-two-years-old and displayed no interest in anyone at all."

"I guess you're right," Ben admitted, smiling at her. "I just forget sometimes how old he is."

This was a surprisingly easy thing to do, Abby knew, so she'd have to forgive him that.

"I wonder what they're talking about though."

Abby followed her husband's line of site over to where Jessica and Riley were skating. They weren't holding hands, but they did look relaxed, and the girl was motioning rather wildly about something or other while Riley laughed. It seemed safe to assume that the relationship had ended on better terms than Jessica had implied, and it was safe to leave Riley to his own devices. "Come on, Ben. You can grill him later if you want to. Right now, I could really go for some hot chocolate."


	11. Snow

**A/N:** This is sort of what I meant 'Magic of the Season' to be like, but I didn't manage it while in Ben's point of view. I decided to give it a second try from someone else's. I'm SO sorry this didn't get up yesterday. FF dot Net wouldn't let me post (the evil people).

Special thanks goes to _**angel17712 **_for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_**The Perfect Christmas  
**__Chapter 11/25: Snow_

Patrick leaned back against the wall with a sigh, enjoying the silence of the morning around him. Inside, he knew Abby was already working on making breakfast, and he'd heard his son and Riley moving around. It wouldn't be long before the chaos that Ben and Abby called their life started. It was nice to steal a few moments for himself, something he was rather used to having.

All too soon, he found the peace being shattered as something in a grey hoodie opened the front door and went zooming down the front walk. Patrick watched, a little confused but not surprised, as Riley turned sharply and dove behind a small wall of snow the young man had built the night before.

He was surprised, however, when he heard Ben's voice and not Abby's bellowing through the house. "RILEY!"

Ben barreled out into the front yard. It seemed he'd dressed rather hastily in sweatpants, a coat, and boots. His hair was still dripping wet and, oddly enough, had clumps of snow in it.

"Riley! You get back here and face this like a man! Ack!" Ben ducked as Riley pelted his front with snowballs. "Riley!"

If the evil laughter from behind the snow wall was any indication, Riley had no intention of coming out and facing anything.

"Riley dumped a bucket full of snow on Ben when he was in the shower," Abby grinned, holding a cup of cocoa out for Patrick.

"That explains it," he muttered, taking the cup from his daughter-in-law. "How did he get it into his head that that was a good idea?"

"I have no idea," Abby said, dodging to the side as Ben ran for cover on the other side of the front step and Riley's snowball missed him.

"You're not fighting fair!" Ben yelled indignantly from the bush he was seeking refuge behind. "You're already all set up."

"A boy scout is always prepared, Ben, and so is a prankster." The top of Riley's beanie appeared over the mound. "I'm feeling gracious today, though, and I'd be willing to give you ten free minutes to build your own fort."

"Ten minutes? I can't build anything decent in ten minutes."

Abby yelped as a snowball flew passed her, going just close enough to Ben's head to send a message just as, Patrick was sure, Riley intended.

Blue eyes peered cheekily over the pile this time. "I don't think you're in any position to be making demands like that, Benjamin Franklin Gates."

Ben's retaliatory snowball bounced lamely off Riley's defensive wall.

"Are you ready, Ben? I'm timing you," the amusement in Riley's voice was evident. "Let's see that famous brain of yours in action!"

"Riley's going to be sorry when Ben catches pneumonia from running around in the snow soaking wet," Abby muttered before taking a sip of her cocoa.

"Not as sorry as Ben's going to be," Patrick chuckled as his son ran out from behind his bush and began piling up snow. He was willing to bet that not only was Riley seriously timing him, but that he was also making snowballs out of any snow he could reach.

"They're like a couple of five year olds," she sighed, looking at him as if he were the only sane adult around for miles. Judging from the way Ben was on his knees trying to get a pile of snow taller than himself, she may have just been right.

"Trust me, Abby; you couldn't have handled Ben at five." The elder Gates shook his head, remembering his son when he'd been young; endless energy and endless curiosity.

"I always imagined Ben as a bookish kid," Abby smiled, sitting down on the top step.

"Oh, he read alright. Every 'Encyclopedia Brown' book ever written. Once he started figuring out the endings without looking, though…well, he thought it would be a good idea to go into business on his own." Patrick couldn't count the number of time he'd had to drag his son over to the neighbor's to apologize for something the boy had broken while trying to play junior detective.

Abby laughed, shaking her head fondly, "Why can I just see that?"

"Hey!" Ben yelled out as a snowball hit him in the side.

"Ten minutes is up!" This time, Riley peered over the top like a jack in the box, snowball in one mitten clad hand. "Now you have to beat…hey!"

Ben laughed as Riley spat out snow, wiping his eyes from Ben's well-aimed projectile.

"Oh, come on! You won last time!" Riley punctuated his complaint with a throw of his own, missing the top of Ben's head by only a matter of seconds when the other man ducked.

"And that's exactly why I'm going to win again."

"Was he constantly into trouble?" Abby asked him as a flurry of snowballs began to fly from one side of the yard to the other.

Patrick sat down next to her, taking a sip of the swiftly cooling hot chocolate with a small smile. Peppermint hot chocolate, his favorite. "It was very rarely on purpose. He didn't actually enjoy being in trouble. It just seemed to find him when we were least expecting it."

"I'll bet he always had the most interesting stories about how it happened though," the young woman smiled fondly as her husband left the safety of his small fort to try and get closer to his opponent, only to be forced into a retreat as Riley pelted him relentlessly.

The old man smiled down into his cup. "One time, he came home covered from head to foot in mud and twigs. All I ever got out of him was that it had involved the janitor, a turtle, and a leaf blower and that he had detention the next afternoon."

Abby spat out her mouthful of hot chocolate, coughing vehemently as she tried to suppress her giggles. By the time she'd regained control of herself, Riley had run across no man's land—having apparently run out of snowballs and not wanting to give Ben time to make some—and had tackled her husband to the ground. The two of them were currently wrestling around, with one first on the top and then the other. All Patrick could really make out was a flurry of loose powder and the occasional limb.

"I would have liked to have known Ben as a kid. I bet he wasn't nearly as serious as he is now," she shook her head as Riley tried to make a break for it, only to be dragged back down. "Well, most of the time."

"Oh, he's pretty much the same," he took another long sip of his hot chocolate before continuing. "There's a lot more silliness that goes on in his head than he lets on. Stuff about being a knight, and other such nonsense. He just only says the things he sees as helpful."

"Riley!" Ben's yell caused them both to look up in time to see the younger man bolting for nearest tree while Ben floundered around, shaking his legs. Somehow or other, Patrick was positive that he didn't want to know how, the young technician must have gotten snow down Ben's sweatpants.

"What do you think Riley was like as a kid?" Abby asked quietly, blue-grey eyes watching as the still laughing young man scrambled up the tree and into the bare branches. "I have the hardest time figuring him out. Sometimes he's so serious—smart and helpful—and then the next instant, it's like he's an eleven-year-old trapped in a grown man's body. I don't know if he's just pretending for a laugh, or if he really just doesn't know how to be an adult."

Patrick had his own theories on this, based almost entirely on the way the younger man hero-worshipped Ben and acted out to get Abby's attention, but he was going to keep those to himself for now. "Oh, I would say he was probably a lot like he is now. Irresponsible and clingy."

"Riley isn't…well okay, he isn't _**always**_ irresponsible and clingy. He has his grown up moments." She frowned in concern as her husband started shaking the tree the subject of their conversation was perched in. "They're just…unpredictable."

The elder Gates grunted his agreement with that last statement. From what he'd seen, Riley was perfectly happy to take advantage of every opportunity to act like a kid that presented itself. Worse still, Ben seemed just as content to not only allow this behavior, but encourage it. "He'll never grow up."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Abby smiled, standing up once again, and they both watched as Riley leapt from the tree right next to Ben, which resulted in them both ending up in the snow again.

"Isn't it? If you don't let him grow up, you'll be stuck with that kid forever." Patrick wasn't sure why he was scolding. It wasn't like he had anything against the boy either, really. He just found him to be a bit…outlandish…and wanted to make sure that Abby and Ben understood that once they allowed this kid in their hearts he wouldn't leave.

"If you think that's a bad thing, you haven't spent enough time with Riley." All traces of humor were gone from Abigail's face as she looked at her father-in-law. "He's the most loyal man I've ever met. He'll do anything for anybody and…he makes Ben so happy. Makes me happy. We wouldn't be a family without him. He's what makes our family complete."

The sad smile came to Patrick's face unbidden. "Jamie, my wife, and I always wanted another child. She used to say that our family felt incomplete, and that she was sure there was a second little one waiting for us somewhere, and we just had to find him. She got sick before we had the chance." He swallowed compulsively, and ran a free hand through his thin grey hair. "Hearing you say that…makes me think that maybe Ben found him for us."

Abby leaned over and gave Patrick a quick hug. "It wouldn't be too late. Maybe you should try spending time with him. You might find you like him too."

Patrick made an indistinct noise, pulling back and swallowing the last of his drink. He stood with Abby, watching his son and the youngest member of their rag-tag little family throw snow at each other until both of them were soaking wet and shivering.


	12. Presents

**A/N:** You guys can't tell me you've never done what Riley does here. I was always particularly good at it, myself.

Great thanks goes out to _**save changes to normal**_ for helping me with this, and Wikipedia for the info!

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 12/25: Presents_

Ben stood at the base of the step ladder, nibbling on his cookie, and waiting to see how long it would take Riley to figure out he was there. So far, they were up to two minutes and it didn't look like the younger man's digging through the attic was going to stop any time soon. Ben swallowed the last of his cookie and grinned. "Riley, what are you doing?"

There was a dull thunk, presumably from Riley hitting his head on something as it was followed by a muffled curse. The younger man lowered his head, rubbing his slightly dustier hair. "Gees, Ben. Give a guy a little warning, why don't you?"

"I've been standing here for a couple of minutes." He stuck his hands in his pockets and continued to smile as Riley shut the door to the attic and came back down to the floor. He had a few guesses as to what the young man had been doing. "They aren't up there, you know."

Riley put on his most innocent look. "What's not up there, Ben?"

"Your presents. That's what you're looking for."

"How could you accuse me of something as underhanded and sneaky as that," the pout that Riley put on his face would have been more effective if the corners of his mouth weren't trying to turn into a smile.

"Easily, Riley. I know you." After the kid had dumped a bucket of snow on his head when Ben had been in the middle of a nice warm shower, he wouldn't put anything dastardly past him.

"For your information, I was looking for…for my mitten." Riley nodded his head decisively, as if he had just decided that was true. "I was helping Abby get stuff down from the attic, and I dropped my mitten up there."

"You expect me to believe you were helping Abigail with boxes while wearing your mittens?" He couldn't help but raise an eye brow. This was getting less convincing by the second.

"Yes. Yes, I do." The young computer geek nodded again as if that decided everything.

Grinning to himself, Ben reached over and took Riley's shoulder. "Well, no worries, Riley, I'll help you find your mitten."

The younger man blinked, blinking at Ben like he'd just announced he was going on another treasure hunt. "What?"

"We're going to go find your mitten." He turned back around, heading back up into the attic. "It might be a tight squeeze, but…"

"I can't believe you're serious about this," Riley muttered from behind his friend as the both climbed up into the attic on their hands and knees.

"Which mitten are we looking for?" Ben was grinning now, thoroughly enjoying trapping Riley in his own lie. The presents really weren't here, he'd known this would be the first place the younger man looked, and it would be fun to lead Riley in circles for a while as pay back.

"How can you and Abby possibly have this much stuff," Riley muttered, pushing a box aside and nearly into Ben's path. "It's not like you two have been married long."

"Probably why we have so much stuff. You only need one of a lot of things in a house, but when we put our stuff together, we had two."

"Sounds like a unique problem." Ben watched Riley tilt his head to try and read something sideways on the box. "I think this is in German, Ben."

"Possibly," he coughed, brushing a cobweb out of his face. "Abby's had some of these boxes a long time."

"Yeah, I think this one is older than me."

Ben rolled his eyes at Riley's snickering and sat down on the floor. "Where'd you lose that mitten exactly?"

"Oh, I think it's around here somewhere…" Riley tried to back up, possibly to turn around, and knocked a box to the floor. It split open, the contents dumping out onto the floor and rolling all over the place. Ben looked up to meet Riley's sheepish grin. "Oops."

"We can't take you anywhere." Ben leaned over and picked up one of the books that had spilled out, recognizing it as one of his old text books. Better one of his boxes that Abby's. "Help me pick it up, will you?"

"I'm on it," was all the other man said before disappearing behind some boxes out of sight.

"Are you two alright up there?" Abby yelled up. Ben was willing to bet she'd heard the thunk and come rushing over to see.

"Yeah, we're fine. Riley's just looking for something."

"What could he possibly need up there?" Ben could hear Abby's frown from there, and smiled.

"We're fine, Abby, I promise." Ben stuck his head over the trap door they used to get up into the attic. "We'll be down before much longer."

"You better be. We have a lecture to be to in a few hours, and I know you haven't even started getting ready," she softened her words with a shake of her head and a smile.

She was right of course. He hadn't even thought about that lecture he was supposed to give at the exhibit at the Museum of Natural History of some treasure items. "We'll be ready to go. Promise."

"Hey, Ben?" Riley's face appeared in his peripheral vision over a box as Abby walked away, shaking her head.

Ben looked up to meet his best friend's curious stare, "yes, Riley?"

Riley lifted his hands above the box, holding out a model ship. "What's this?"

A smile crossed Ben's face as he reached out and took it from Riley's grasp. "The_Margaretta_."

"Pardon?"

"The first ship to be used in the Revolutionary war. The first merchant marine action in the war took place on June 12, 1775 when a group of Machias, Maine citizens, after hearing the news of what happened in Concord and Lexington, boarded and captured the schooner British warship HMS _Margaretta._ In need of critical supplies, they were given the ultimatum that they either load up ships with lumber to be brought to Boston to make British barracks and receive their much needed supplies or go hungry. If they complied with this order from Lieutenant Moore of the British Navy they betrayed the American cause so they chose to fight."

Riley stared at him, slowly raising an eyebrow. "Did you memorize the encyclopedia for fun as a child?"

Ben shook his head, gently putting the boat on top of another box. "My grandfather and I built that model. My Dad had to go on a business trip one summer, and I stayed with him for a couple months. We worked on it everyday."

"Wow," Riley turned his head to the side, looking at the intricate little boat. "You've kept this that long?"

"Yeah. Good thing too. It was this little girl that made me realize most boats were named after women…and the Charlotte was a ship."

"You're such a dork, Ben."

"Yeah, I know."

"Guess what else I found," Riley grinned cheekily as Ben picked up another one of his spilt books.

"What did you find, Riley?"

The grin he received in response wouldn't have looked out of place on the Cheshire cat as Riley held up his hand, and with it one single mitten.


	13. Santa Claus

**A/N:** I have way too much fun with these two, mostly because they still aren't sure what to make of each other. It's so much fun!

By the way, I've never been back east. I live out in the West, and never seen more than common pictures of New York City so…if I have some information wrong I'm sorry.

…P.S. Ben would look really sexy in Riley's present. Just a thought.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 13: Santa Claus_

"Why are we in New York, _**again**_? I don't even like New York."

Patrick rolled his eyes at Riley's constant stream of complaining under his breath. He could see why Abigail was so eager to pawn the kid off on him now, instead of having the two of them sit through Ben's lecture. He had to wonder if, knowing then what he did now, whether or not he would still take Abby's suggestion of going Christmas shopping with Riley since the boy hadn't had a chance to go without her or Ben yet.

Riley had driven them to a quieter mall instead of the classy uptown stores, which suited Patrick just fine. He wasn't exactly a social man, and didn't mind the idea of avoiding the big city crowds as much as possible.

The young man bent down, looking curiously at something on a lower shelf. "Seriously, what's in New York that we can't get back at home?"

"Probably lots of things," Patrick muttered, trying to peer over Riley's shoulder to see what the kid was looking at so intently. "Expensive department stores…"

"It's a rhetorical question." Riley stood up; grinning down at the thing he was now holding in his hands. An Indiana Jones hat. "This is the perfect present for Ben!"

Actually, it probably was. Something that was just like his son, but still silly enough to be appealing. "When's he ever going to use that?"

"I think it would suite him," Riley grinned, plopping the thing on his head. "I could imagine him running around in this, looking for a new adventure…"

"You encourage new adventure seeking, kid; and you and I are going to have to have a serious talk." Patrick folded his arms across his chest, frowning as Riley adjusted the hat and ignored him. "You're really going to get him that hat, aren't you?"

"Absolutely." The younger man was beaming as he removed the hat and headed towards the cashier. "Ben warned me you were once of those almost-Scrooge practical present givers."

Scrooge? He was not a Scrooge! Patrick had always enjoyed Christmas, thank you very much! "There's nothing wrong with practical presents."

"If you want to give someone something practical, you should just do it. Christmas and birthday's are for fun things you have no other reason to give." All of this was said with an air that Riley was perfectly confident in the soundness of his logic. No matter how questionable everyone else might have found it.

Knowing a lost cause when he saw it, Patrick just huffed his disagreement and followed Riley back to the front of the store. "I always knew you would be a bad influence on my son."

"Me? I would have you know that all the breaking, entering, and stealing was never my idea. I just get a kick out of it." He put the hat on the counter, digging out his debit card and swiping it.

"He used to be very smart with money, you know. None of the frivolous gift buy he's doing this holiday."

"You're saying this like money is all a concern for anybody involved," Riley laughed, picking up his purchase. "Why? What did he get me that's so frivolous?"

"I'm not going to tell you." In truth, Patrick couldn't have told him, even if he wanted to. Ben was keeping the gift so secret that even Abby didn't know what it was. They just knew that Ben was counting down the days until Christmas almost exclusively because he could give it to Riley then.

"It was worth a shot. Now…what to get Abby…." The young man frowned as they passed through the shop's center. "What do you get a girl who isn't your sister, your mom, or your girlfriend?"

"You could always ask Santa," the elder Gates smirked, motioning towards the nearly empty line that was leading up to an elderly gentleman sitting on a chair surrounded by fake snow and not so happy looking elves.

Riley shot Patrick a look that made it quite clear he was no debating sticking the old man in a home. "Tell me you're kidding."

"Well, Santa is supposed to know what everyone wants, right? I'm sure he could tell you what to get Abigail."

"Yeah…as fun as that sounds…" Riley shook his head, moving to walk past the entry to the line.

Patrick wasn't about to let this go, though. The kid still owed him for making him ride that sled, and the perfect payback right now seemed to be convincing him to go and talk to Santa long enough for the elder man to get a picture.

And the insulting his courage would have worked with the sled if it had been necessary…"Alright then. I understand."

Riley froze before turning around slowly. "Understand what?"

"Well, lots of kids are afraid of Santa. If you didn't grow out of it, that's no big deal."

As expected, Riley's eyes narrowed and he stiffened his back. "I am not afraid of Santa. Never have been."

Patrick waved his hands, walking passed the boy," you don't have to justify it to me, kiddo. I already told you it's no big deal if you are."

"I am not!" Riley frowned and stalked off into the line. "There's nothing to be afraid of with an old guy in a Santa suit anyway."

"Keep telling yourself that, kid," Patrick grinned, moving over to the nearby stand that was selling disposable cameras. It might be hoping for a bit much that he could get the kid sitting on Santa's lap, but he could work with just having him stand next to him. By the time he'd purchased the camera, Riley was the next one in line.

"This is stupid," the young man muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"It's not too late for you to change your mind…"

"And listen to you all day? No way." Riley stepped forward as the small girl in a pink coat hopped off the man's lap and scampered back to his mother. "Hey there, Santa man. I was told I should come and talk to you about finding a present for my friend."

The old man, and did indeed look to be around Patrick's age—the beard was probably even real—smiled as he looked down. "Well I'll be…is your name Riley Poole?"

Riley visibly started, "wait how do you know my….oh, right! You probably saw me on the news."

Santa laughed, his belly genuinely looking like a bowl full of jelly. "Yes, I probably did, but that's not where I remember you from."

"It's not?" Riley stepped over, looking utterly perplexed, and Patrick followed. He honestly could not deny that he was curious as to how this mall Santa could possibly know Riley.

"Oh, no. You see, the first year I was a Santa at this mall was about nine years ago, and they brought over a bunch of kids from a boys home."

Patrick frowned slightly. He'd heard from Abigail that Riley had grown up in an orphanage. She hadn't said that orphanage had been in New York City.

"There was one boy, probably about fourteen years old, who came up to me very last. Do you know what he said, Riley?"

"He was thirteen, and he said…" Riley's voice sounded dry, so he swallowed before continuing. "He said that he didn't know whether you sere real or not, but he didn't want to risk it if you were, because what he wanted more than anything else in the world."

"And I've never been able to forget the look on that boy's face when I told him that I wouldn't be able to get him what he wanted," Santa smiled gently, motioning Riley to come stand next to him. "When I told him even Santa's magic couldn't bring his mother back for him."

Patrick felt his breath catch in his throat. He remembered the Christmas after Jamie had died. His six-year-old son had written Santa for the exact same thing. He had read Ben's letter before sending it off, and had to explain to the small boy that she couldn't come back…no matter how much they both wanted her to.

"Even though she wasn't dead," Riley whispered, though it seemed to be more to himself than to the Santa. "She was just…missing."

That, Patrick decided as he looked at Riley's far off face, was somehow worse. At least he'd been able to tell Ben that his mother still loved him. That she was in a better place, and happy there. There was comfort in knowing. From the sounds of it, and the look on the boy's face, Riley still had no idea where his mother was. He could only imagine how desperate thirteen-year-old must have been to ask Santa Claus for help, in spite of everything he had to believe by that point.

"I hope this time that I can be more help." The man smiled, giving Riley's shoulder a gentle pat.

"Yeah, me too. What do you get a girl who isn't your sister or mother—is more like kind of both but she isn't—and is definitely NOT your girlfriend…"


	14. Gingerbread

**A/N:** Well, hopefully this is the point where you'll start getting more answers than questions. Not all the answers, because I do still intend to write a whole story about Riley's past, but enough answers to keep you all from hunting me down after Christmas.

_**The Perfect Christmas  
**__Chapter 14/25: Gingerbread_

Abigail Gates smiled as she surveyed the mass of ingredients spread out in front of her, running through a mental check list to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. Pieces of gingerbread cut out to exact sizes and left to harden overnight, check. Cardboard for bases, check. A massive bowl of frosting with a knife as well as a tube to squirt with, check. Enough gumdrops to feed a third world country…

"What are you doing, Abby?" Riley asked from behind her, and she was proud to say she only jumped a little before turning and smiling at him.

"_**We**_ are making gingerbread houses, Riley."

A couple of very befuddled blinks followed before Riley tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "We as in you and me?"

"Yes! Unless you'd rather be helping Ben and Dad clear off the sidewalk." Abby couldn't help but smirk a little at this as Riley looked out the window to see Ben hard at work shoveling snow, and Patrick working just as hard telling his son he was doing it all wrong.

"Er…I'd love nothing more than to make gingerbread houses with you, Abby! Let's get started." Riley plopped himself down in one of the chairs, looking over the table with a mixture of aw and disbelief. "Unless you're planning on making a full sized one, in which case I may go see if I can apprentice myself to Patrick."

"No, just two decently sized ones," she grinned, grabbing her piece of cardboard and a knife full of frosting, which she spread across the base as a perfect foundation before grabbing her first two pieces for walls.

Riley followed her lead, although not nearly as skillful at making his frosting look more uniform and less like someone had thrown on a pile of frosting and then tried to clean it up by wiping at it.

"Why, exactly, did you decide this was an activity for the two of us, Abs?" Riley questioned a few minutes later as they waited for the walls to settle.

"Oh, I just thought we hadn't done any real holiday activities the last couple of days, and it might be fun to do something kind of traditional." Abby grinned as she grabbed to tube of frosting and stated lining the tops of the walls for the roof pieces.

"I can't say that this is what I would have thought of as a traditional Christmas activity. I can't even say I've ever met someone before who has made an actual gingerbread house with real gingerbread," the younger man ran his finger along the excess frosting on his cardboard, liking it clean before continuing. "Most of us just get milk boxes and graham crackers as kids."

"Most people don't go on traditional sleigh rides either," Abby teased.

Riley didn't respond as he was concentrating very hard on aligning the roof pieces just right—his tongue sticking out of his mouth and everything.

Abby bit back a giggle, spreading the last of the frosting that would serve as the cement on the house before sitting back and waiting for it to dry. "You're getting frosting all over your sleeve."

The other glanced down, slightly surprised to find this was true. "Uh…oops?"

"Why don't you just take it off?" She frowned a little, wondering, not for the first time, why he even had it on to begin with. He hadn't gone outside today that she knew of and the house itself was plenty warm.

"No, that's okay. I'll just be more careful." Riley grinned at her as he brought the sleeve up to his mouth and attempted to lick the frosting off.

Abby rolled her eyes, standing up and moving behind him. "Come on, Riley, just take it off. You've got to be too hot in that thing."

"If that were true, than I'd have a girlfriend," came the easy reply as he attempted to twist away from her. "Why's it bothering you so much?"

"Because you're going to make a mess that I'm going to have to clean up, and it would be much easier if you would just take the hoodie off to start with." She folded her arms across her chest and looked down at the younger man in what she hoped was an intimidating manner. "What ever you're trying to hide, you don't have to from me."

It must have been an effective look, because Riley shrunk back, "what makes you think I'm hiding something?"

"The fact that there is absolutely no reason to keep it on, and yet you insist on it, maybe?"

Riley seemed to consider this for several seconds before, with a very put upon sigh, sliding the piece off his shoulders and hanging it off the back of the chair.

Abby was first struck by just how scrawny he looked in only his t-shirt, and how incredibly pale his arms were. It looked as though his arms hadn't seen the light of day for a while.

This was probably why she could see the scars so easily. On both his lower arms, towards the middle, there was a matching set of old faded scars. Abby couldn't think of when she'd seen a pair of more odd looking scars, either. They were perfectly spaced lines that, if you extended them out, looked like a swirl—like a burner on a stove. She frowned at them, trying to figure out in what way they could maybe even possibly have been accidental. She couldn't think of one.

Blue eyes followed her's down to the scars and he sighed, "go on, I know you're dying to ask."

"Who did that to you?"

From the slightly startled look on Riley's face, that hadn't been what he'd given her permission to ask. He shrugged, looking away, "what makes you think somebody did anything to you?"

She took his arm in her hands, twisting it to try to demonstrate. "You don't grab pots like this, and they're too perfectly matched, almost identical. You couldn't possibly do that accidentally. No way."

"That's what got me in trouble the first time," Riley smiled, a little sadly. "I tried telling one of my teachers that I'd done them myself on accident. He didn't believe me either."

Abby pondered this silently, trying to piece some things together in her head. She knew that Riley had grown up in an orphanage. He knew that before that he'd lived with his mother, and reason said they had to have been very poor. Therefore, the only really logical conclusion had to be that he'd been abused and taken from her.

"Riley…"

"I know what you're thinking," he said darkly, finally pulling his arms away. "And the answer is no, I'm not suicidal. I never have and never will inflict pain upon myself. I'm not depressed in anyway."

"That wasn't what I was thinking." Since she no longer had his arms, Abby reached up and ran a hand through Riley's hair instead. He looked surprised by the intimate gesture. "I was going to say that I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I don't know how anyone could want to hurt you."

A look of confusion before the young man looked down. "My mother didn't do it either. Not directly anyway."

Abby pulled back, grabbing her chair and sitting next to her friend, "you don't have to tell me, if you don't want to…"

"No, it's alright. You and Ben were probably going to find out eventually anyway." He rubbed his arms a little before seemingly realizing what he was doing and stopping himself. "What you have to understand right off is that my Mom was really young. I think she'd be…maybe a year older than Ben at most."

Abby held back her gasp, but it was a near thing. What that translated to was that his mother had been, under the very best of circumstance, barely sixteen when she'd had him, since Ben was fourteen years older than their young companion. In all likely hood, she'd been only fifteen.

If Riley noticed her surprise, he made no comment on it. "As you can imagine, she didn't finish high school, so the jobs she did have didn't exactly pay well, and her she was too stubborn to live with her mom…even though Grandma loved her dearly and I know she offered several times until she died. We lived in this little tiny apartment, the two of us and a friend of my mother's…Shirley."

He didn't have to say what Abby knew he was going to. The brief look of terror and distaste that flew across his face as he said her name, and the thick swallow afterwards, was all the answer she needed.

"Oh, Riley…"

"She didn't like kids," he continued, almost as if he couldn't stop once he'd started. "She had no patience for the mistakes I would make. My mother never hit me. Didn't even spank me when I deserved it. The most she would do is cry, and that was punishment enough for me. But she didn't…stop Shirley either. A lot of the time, she would just watch. I don't think she even realized what was going on half the time." Riley sounded bitter, and his fists seemed to be clenching reflexively on his knees. "After I showed up to school with these, the judge ruled it was all the same thing."

Instinctively, Abby reached down and hugged the young man close, "I'm so sorry."

He stiffened a little, but didn't pull away. "It was a long time ago. It's okay now."

"I'm still sorry. You didn't deserve that." She pulled back, smiling at him. "Thank you for telling me."

"You wouldn't lay off until I did," Riley muttered, but he gave her a half-smile. "Do me a favor and explain it to Ben, will you? I don't really want to repeat it again."

"Sure thing." Abby sat down, reaching for the frosting.

Riley pulled it out of her grasp and grinned at her. "You do realize that I can't just let you walk away with my secrets though, don't you?"

She frowned, reaching to grab the frosting, "oh? What are you planning on doing about it?"

Riley removed the spatula from the frosting and ran it down her face in answer.


	15. Hot Chocolate

**A/N:** This is so me and my siblings, just so you know.

Wow…late much? I'm determined to finish this though, so…hopefully these will be done quickly. I know that Book of Secrets has proven many things in this story wrong, but I'm sticking to the canon as I'd established it before for the sake of continuity. So, there you go.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 15/25: Hot Chocolate_

Abigail Chase had seen several odd things since the day that Ben Gates had walked into her office and introduced himself as Paul Brown. She'd seen invisible treasure maps, bottomless pits, and treasure beyond what anyone could imagine. In fact, she'd been of the opinion that very little could surprise her anymore.

The universe, like a certain group of men she knew, loved to prove her wrong. Usually, the two worked hand in hand.

Finding Ben and Riley sitting on opposite sides of the breakfast bar, two long rows of shot glasses filled with…hot chocolate?...between them was so much the last thing she expected to see first thing in the morning, it wasn't even on the list. Worse still, she couldn't imagine what it was they were up to. That was never a good thing. If she didn't know what they were doing, she couldn't make preemptive moves to stop them when—and it was always a when—it got out of hand.

Abby was about to step in, demand an explanation as to why her kitchen smelt so sweet she almost couldn't breathe, when she realized the boys were talking. She couldn't make out what they were saying, but they were speaking quietly and sounded very serious. Interrupting suddenly no longer an option, she chose to try and sneak to sit at the table. Normally, she couldn't slip by Ben, but it looked as though her husband was completely focused on the young man sitting in front of him.

"Are you going to clue me in on where you're going with this? Because, at the moment it looks like towards a birds and the bees talk, Ben," Riley was whispering, a half-grin on his face as he carefully nursed a glass of water. "And I have two problems with that. I HAVE heard it before, and I don't want to hear it from _**you**_."

Ben rolled his eyes, but he looked distinctly less relaxed then Riley did. Apparently, however this conversation had started, Ben had lost control of it some time ago. This wasn't a particularly hard thing to do when the other side of the conversation was Riley Poole, but it still never failed to put Ben out of sorts.

"I'll tell you what I was getting at in a minute. Right now, I'm willing to bet the chocolate is cooled down."

"Distraction tactics are usually my thing," now Riley wasn't even trying to hide his amusement, and he picked up the shot glass nearest him. "Which one is this one? Just plain?"

"Figured it was a good place to start."

"Alright. Operation find the best hot chocolate flavor can officially commence."

Abby had to smother a laugh behind her hand. That's what they were doing? Tasting all the hot chocolate flavors? That explained the last minute shopping trip the night before. If it weren't so oddly amusing, she might have been angry at them for being so childish. She watched, still grinning, as they both picked up the first glass in the line closest to them and gulped it down.

Riley grinned and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Not a bad control. Nestle?"

"Stephen's."

"Gourmet."

"Exactly."

Moments like this where both endearing and frustrating for Abby. She loved that both her boys, and they were her boys, were so close they didn't need full sentences to communicate. She hated that she felt like, even now, she and Ben weren't that close. Somehow, she didn't think she'd ever be able to connect with her husband on the same way that Riley could. Then again, she did like her ability to tell Ben no, something Riley seemed wholly unable to do, so maybe it wasn't all bad.

Ben took a sip of the glass of water on his side of the table before fixing Riley with his best intimidating stare, "so, tell me about Jessica."

"Jessica?" Riley looked utterly perplexed as he too took a sip of water. "Jessica who?"

"You're girlfriend," the oldest of the pair frowned, grabbing his next shot glass. "This one is French vanilla."

"Ex-girlfriend," Riley corrected before tipping his head back and downing the glass. He made a face, swallowing a mouthful of water quickly. "That one was still a little warm. Good though."

Abby, mean while, had let her head fall down on the table with a soft groan. When she'd told Ben he could grill Riley about his former girlfriend later, she hadn't actually meant for him to do it! Riley was perfectly allowed to not tell them things if he didn't want to. People had secrets. Unless you were Ben Gates, where you pretty much said and did everything exactly for the reasons you said you were going to, and lying was only something one did to protect the innocent. This was probably why he sucked so badly doing it, now that she thought of it.

"Glad you approve. Now, about Jessica…"

Riley rolled his eyes, obviously exasperated. "What do you want me to say, Ben? Jessica was in my high school. We went out. We broke up after I graduated early and left for MIT. End of story."

"Why didn't you tell me you'd had a girlfriend?" Here, Ben seemed to be trying to pull off the pouty look that worked so well for Riley. For whatever reason, probably lack of practice, it didn't suite him at all.

"Well, I was kind of hoping you'd assume I was cool enough to have had at least one by the age of twenty two." Now it was the younger man's turn to shoot his best intimidating glare over his water glass as he tipped it back. Ben, almost but not quite, looked sheepish.

"I didn't mean it like that, Riley." His tone was a fascinating combination between annoyed and apologetic. "I just meant that those are the sorts of things friends usually know about each other."

Riley frowned deeply at the next glass as he swirled it slowly around. "I thought we had an unspoken rule not to talk about the past. Well…not _**personal**_ past anyway. You have nothing else to talk about really."

Now Ben DID look sheepish and more than a little embarrassed too. "I didn't mean…"

The young man smiled at his best friend a little indulgently, mirroring a look Ben usually gave him when he was being excessively Riley-ish, and shook his head. "How about we move on to the next glass, and you can start over."

The former treasure protector nodded, picking up his glass too. "Mint."

"Nice."

They drank simultaneously, both nodding their approval, before Riley sat up a little straighter and steepled his fingers in front of his face. "Now, Ben, what did you want to talk about?"

"I saw you talking to that girl—Jessica—the other day," Ben started, trying to sound casual in spite of the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Yeah, you know, random meetings seem to be the story of my life," Riley shrugged evasively.

"Rather," Ben agreed, though what exactly that meant Abby had no clue, before he consulted a piece of paper on the counter that Abby hadn't seen before. "We've got chocolate cream next."

"Chocolate IN hot chocolate? Seriously, who does that?"

"I don't know. She seemed nice."

"Who did?"

"Jessica."

"Which Jessica?"

Abby sighed woefully out her nose. She couldn't decide whether Riley was being difficult just because he was Riley and enjoyed it, or because he was actually reluctant to discuss it. Either way, one of her boys was probably going to be miserable before Ben inevitably won.

Ben, for his part, was doing his best to look only minimally annoyed. "Jessica…shoot, Riley, I can't remember her last name."

Riley snorted into his glass of water, getting that goofy look he always got when he knew he'd successfully pushed all of Ben's buttons. "Bates, Ben. Like your name, only with a B." He got a suddenly contemplative look on his face. "Huh. Wonder if there's something to that."

"Really?" Abby recognized the look in Ben's eyes as he suddenly realized he had an opening. Hook…"Is she a history buff too, or something?"

Line….

"No. She was one of those English type people. Always reading something." Sinker.

Though his face betrayed nothing more than polite interest, Abby knew that if Riley had looked up then he would have realized from the triumph in Ben's eyes that he'd just lost. "Really? I didn't picture you'd go for a girl like that."

"I spent a lot of time in the library in high school, mostly playing with their computers since we didn't have one. She spent a lot of time there reading. We started talking when she sat down next to me and I showed her how to best use the catalog to find what she needed and it just progressed from there."

"Sounds nice." Ben downed his glass and Riley followed his lead.

"It was," the twenty-two-year old shrugged once he'd finished. He didn't look too impressed by the added chocolate. "We dated for a year or so. Then I graduated and left for Massachusetts. We tried the long distance thing for a while, and it worked okay. Then it just kind of…faded away. We never officially broke up. She just asked me once if I minded if she went to Homecoming with another boy from school, I told her I didn't, and then it was just gone."

Ben nodded like he understood, though Abby doubted whether or not he actually did. Ben Gates did NOT fade away from anything. "You seemed to hit it off again really well."

"What's next?" Riley tried, reaching for the next glass.

Ben did not look impressed. "Riley."

"Ben."

"Carmel."

"We're friends. She's dating another guy she's really into. I'm not really looking right now."

The older man seemed satisfied with that as he picked up his glass and swallowed without another word.

Riley looked miserably down the row of glasses and made a face. "Maybe we should have eaten something first. Small glasses or not, all this sugar can't be good for a still growing kid like me."

Ben shot him a look that quite clearly said _you wish_. "Probably. Do you have any opinion on that one, Abigail?"


	16. Christmas Music

**A/N:** Yeah, this is short. That's okay though. It's pure fluff. I've also decided that Patrick isn't very honest with himself. He still thinks he doesn't care about Riley. He just doesn't know about that yet.

_**The Perfect Christmas**  
Chapter 16/25: Christmas Music_

He didn't understand much about his son's best friend, but Patrick Gates was pretty sure that the look he had on his face right now could only mean trouble. His first instinct was to perform a tactical retreat back to his room and just let the kid get the mischief out of his system, but he'd promised his son—and more importantly his daughter-in-law—that he would baby sit their spare person so they could have a quiet evening together.

With all the work they'd put into making this holiday special for everyone, they deserved at least that much.

That was why Patrick knew he couldn't pretend that he hadn't seen that look of devilishness on Riley Poole's face, not matter how much his grandfatherly instincts were telling him to turn a blind eye and let the young man's surrogate protectors deal with the mess.

"What are you doing?"

It was to Riley's credit that he didn't jump at Patrick's approach. In fact, he barely spared a glance over his shoulder from where he was sitting just outside the living room doorway. "I'm making sure Ben doesn't screw this up."

Unexpected answer, but then he'd raised Benjamin Franklin Gates almost single handed. He'd learned long ago to take the unexpected and run with it. "You think he's some how going to mess up having a quiet dinner for two with his wife?"

"Think? No, no I _**know**_ he'll screw this up. Romance is not Ben's strong point."

Patrick wasn't sure what was worse: the fact that Riley seemed so sure of himself or the fact that he was rather inclined to agree with the young man. It had taken some intervention on his part to convince his son that proposing to Abigail at the National Archives building would not be romantic, no matter how tied up the Declaration had been in their meeting, because she worked there.

That didn't explain the look of mischief, though. "How you intend to help him from all the way over here, without anyone noticing, I wonder."

This time, the young man did turn to look at him, and there was only one word he could think of for that look. Evil.

"I decided to do some…preemptive plotting earlier today."

Yes, that was definitely the face of evil he was looking in to. "I'm going to regret asking this, but what did you do?"

To this, Riley simply held a finger to his lips and motioned Patrick closer. The older Gates chose instead to take a seat on the steps. That way, if this went badly, he could pretend he was just coming down the stairs and had had no part in any of it. Hey, if he could fool the FBI, chances were good he could fool his son.

They could hear whispered conversation from the couch by the fire place, though its back was to them so neither of the men could see the two. They could just hear Abby's laughter and soft tinkling of wine glasses being clinked together.

Riley made a face, shaking his head. "That's almost enough to make me sick."

"And yet," Patrick observed, taking off his glasses to clean some of the dust with his shirt, "you're trying to make this better for them?"

"Well, yeah. They're a couple. They eat this stuff up." The young man reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a remote as the whispers lulled into silence. "Watch."

Patrick did as instructed, though his made sure his face was the correct expression of disapproval and doubt. He didn't want the kid to get his compliance confused with Patrick actually condoning his actions. If Ben asked, Riley couldn't say Patrick had had anything to do with it.

Grinning to himself, Riley carefully aimed the remote across the room at the stereo sitting, slightly dusty, on one of the antique coffee tables. It sprung to life, disused little lights immediately glowing in the near darkness. It was amazing to the elderly man that neither of the love birds on the couch noticed, but as neither said anything he had to assume it hadn't caught their notice.

Riley seemed satisfied with this as he put down the first remote before pulling out a second, smaller, white one.

The older man raised an eyebrow, "how many gadgets do you keep in there?"

"On a normal day or now?" The young man simply grinned back, which seemed enough of an answer for both of them. "Wow, they must be doing that googly eye thing if they didn't notice my iPod turn on."

"Googly eye thing?"

"Yeah. You know, that thing they do where it like, for two seconds, they find the other person more interesting than history. It's freaky. And obnoxious."

It was also a perfectly normal thing for couples to do, but Patrick wasn't going to be the one to explain THAT to Riley. He was Ben's extra appendage; he could explain how couples acted to the techno geek.

"I spent three hours on this play list, so Ben better appreciate this."

For a brief moment, Patrick entertained the idea of asking the young man what exactly a play list was, but then decided that would be a lecture for another day. Maybe when he'd either had considerably more or considerably less coffee.

Riley hit one of the buttons on his little device and the stereo immediately responded. Soft music filled the room, and Patrick was surprised to note that it wasn't the kind of deafening stuff he would occasionally catch coming out of the kid's headphones. This was soft…light…

It was "Baby It's Cold Outside".

Patrick smothered a laugh behind his hand. Yes, he supposed that would count as a song to set the romantic mood.

"What…" Abby's blonde head appeared a little over the back of the couch, staring off in the direction of their seldom used piece of electronic equipment. "Is that…music?"

Ben joined her, his confusion obvious even in the fire light. "I…yeah. If you don't like it, I can turn it off."

He sounded almost eager at the idea, and Riley scowled, whispering to no one, "there's still two hours of music on there. You better not."

"No, leave it." Abby's hand came up, resting on the back of Ben's head and turning him to face her again. "It's nice. I like it."

"Oh."

"Oh?" Riley groaned, hiding his face behind a hand. "Ben, the best you could come up with was oh?"

Patrick chuckled to himself, standing up again. "Face it, kid, you can't fix everything. Besides, Abigail likes him that way."

"For whatever reason," the young man conceded, hopping up to his feet with a less evil grin. "Alright, you're my babysitter tonight. What are we doing?"

With a shrug, the Gates family patriarch reached over and grabbed the young man's jacket off the coat rack and threw it at Riley. "How about a Happy Meal?"

"Cool." Riley was beaming at this, like Patrick had just made his night with that suggestion. "I want apple dippers with mine."


End file.
